Economist warned of expanding income inequality
Lester Thurow, an author, commentator and MIT professor who was an influential economist and an early and outspoken voice on such pressing public issues as the expanding inequality in incomes, died March 25 at his home in Westport, Mass. He was 77.
His death was announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The cause could not immediately be determined.
Through bestselling books, in provocative articles and sharp speeches, and in interviews and television appearances, Dr. Thurow showed himself to be a scholar with a wish to be heard by a broad public and a gift for explaining complex topics in clear language.
Over the years, he had been a dean at MIT, advised presidential candidates and made significant contributions to the national debate on an array of economic issues.
He gained particular attention in the 1980s as the author of The Zero-Sum Society: Distribution and the Possibilities for Change (1980). In that book, he argued, as the title suggests, that a more equitable sharing of economic burdens and benefits might give more to some and less to others, but need not preclude prosperity.
By propounding new economic ideas in the public
Lester Thurow arena and seeking the attention of a broad audience, he told an interviewer, he aimed “to make the world better.”
In the service of this goal, he expanded his horizons over time to move beyond income distribution to talk about the wider range of economic issues that affected American well-being.
Many of the matters he dealt with have resonated during the current presidential campaign. They include the nation’s ability to compete at a time of increasing globalization and the overall state of working America as jobs and capital flow abroad.
In his book The Future of Capitalism (1996), he was credited with diagnosing the economic anxieties and ailments that have gained increasing attention — including not only the income gap, but also sluggish growth and widespread joblessness.
In a statement, MIT’s president, L. Rafael Reif, said Thurow “spent his life trying to make society more far-sighted and more fair.”
He was one of the five founders of the Economic Policy Institute, which distinguished itself for both setting and anticipating the American economic agenda.