Dear NBER Board Members, Researchers, and Staff Members -
I am sorry to convey the news that Robert E. Lipsey, an NBER Research
Associate, former Vice President for Research, and the Director of the
NBER's New York office, passed away yesterday at the age of 84. Bob, a
Professor Emeritus at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York, was actively involved in NBER research for more
than six decades. He received both his B.A. and his Ph.D. from Columbia
University, and began working at the NBER in the summer of 1945, after
completing his first year of graduate school. His first job was in the
Business Cycle Dating unit, and he was also a research assistant to
Solomon Fabricant. Bob's dissertation, Price and Quantity Trends in the
Foreign Trade of the United States, was published as an NBER monograph.
Bob maintained his interests in international economics and economic
measurement, and was an active participant in the intellectual life of
the NBER, throughout his entire professional career. He did fundamental
work on foreign direct investment, on the international comparison of
investment and saving, and on the measurement of prices and trade flows.
He was a central figure in the Conference on Research on Income and
Wealth, organizing a number of its most influential projects; he
participated most recently in the CRIW meetings at the just-completed
Summer Institute. Bob played a vital role in contributing to the
research activities of the NBER in the field of international economics.
Bob was an insightful, energetic, and wise scholar, and he will be
deeply missed.
Jim Poterba
Received on Thu Aug 11 2011 - 16:16:59 EDT
