Dear NBER Board Members, Researchers, and Staff -
I am sorry to convey the news that Eli Shapiro, a distinguished
financial economist who served as NBER President between 1982 and 1984,
passed away last week in Boston at the age of 94. Eli was a graduate of
Brooklyn College, and he received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1939. In
the course of his academic career, Eli taught at the University of
Chicago, the Harvard Business School, and the MIT Sloan School of
Management. At the time of his death he was the Alfred P. Sloan
Professor of Management, Emeritus, at MIT.
Eli joined the NBER in 1938 as a research economist, and, with some
interruptions, was a member of the Bureau's research staff until the
early 1960s. His research focused on corporate finance and the links
between financial and real activity -- topics that are as relevant today
as they were when he began studying them more than seventy years ago.
Eli was elected to the NBER Board of Directors in 1974, and he became
Chairman of the Board in 1980. He relinquished that position when he
became NBER President in 1982, and remained a board member when he
stepped down as President in 1984. In 1993, he became a director emeritus.
Eli was an important contributor to the NBER and to the fields of
economics and finance, and he will be deeply missed.
Jim Poterba
Received on Sun Dec 05 2010 - 14:35:43 EST
