Arthur Lewis

Sir Arthur Lewis (January 23rd 1915 - June 15th 1991), British economist , gained it price “Nobel of economy” in 1979 for its work in economy of the development.

Biography

Lewis was born with St Lucia, which was still at the time a British territory in the the Caribbean. In 1932, it obtains a purse of the government to study in a British university. It wished to become engineer. But at the time the only stations reserved for the Blacks were in medicine and right. He thus knew that neither the government nor the industrialists would engage a black. He decided to off continue studies of trade to the London School Economics.

Once its Doctorate out of pocket, it studied the economic Histoire on the councils of Friedrich Hayek, then director of the department of economy of the London School off Economics. This last required of him to ensure a course on what was able between the wars in order to supplement the analysis of the time on the theory of the cycles. Lewis indicated to Hayek that it knew nothing there, it what Hayek answered that the best way of looking further into a subject was to teach it.

It is only the shortly of the Second world war and the independence obtained by many countries that Lewis started to study the economy of the development.

The queen of England anoblit this Saint-Lucien in 1963. In 1979, the Bank of Sweden decrees it to him price “Nobel of economy”, like with the economist Theodore W Schultz for their work on the questions of development. According to the jury of the Nobel, “Lewis is a pioneer of research in economy of the development… giving an special attention to the problems of the Pays in the process of development”.

Simultaneously with its university career, Arthur Lewis advised on the economic plan the Prime Minister for the Ghana between 1957 and 1963, vice-president of the Fonds of the United Nations for the Development, and took part in the creation of the Bank of development of the Caribbean between 1970 and 1974.

It is deceased on June 15th, 1991 with Bridgetown (Barbados) and is buried in a university of St Lucia which bears its name.

Development model

The publication of Economic Developement with Unlimited Supplies off Ploughing in 1954 is regarded as one of the articles founders of the economy of the development still stammering in the years 1950. The traditional theories of growth were to be adapted to specificities of the Developing country. According to Lewis, the developing countries are characterized by the presence of a dual economy. In these countries coexist a traditional sector (abstract agriculture and activities), with a surplus of labor, and a modern sector (capitalist industries) functioning on the capitalist mode: the profit makes it possible to finance the investment. The migration of labor coming from the traditional sector towards the modern sector draws the economy, and the profits generated by the modern sector create the growth and the accumulation of capital which finance the expansion. The traditional sector, laying out of a cheap labor and in sufficient quantity, is used as tank with industry.

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