Alice H. Amsden

Sad news from our home institution that our author Alice Amsden died suddenly last week at her Cambridge home. She was 68. No cause was given.

Amsden, a prominent development economist, was Barton L. Weller Professor of Political Economy in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the time of her death. She wrote extensively about the industrialization process of emerging nations, including two books for us: Beyond Late Development: Taiwan's Upgrading Policies (2003, with Wan-Wen Chu), and Escape from Empire: The Developing World's Journey through Heaven and Hell (2007).

"While others took the conventional way," said Urban Studies and Planning Department head Amy K. Glasmeier, "Alice took another path. She was fearless. By any measure, Alice was one of the most, if not the most, accomplished heterodox economist in the world.”

A memorial service at MIT will be held later in the spring. She will be missed.