糖心TV

Remembering Professor Chuck Blackorby

The Department is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Charles (Chuck) Blackorby, a distinguished economist and former member of the Department whose research made a lasting impact on microeconomic theory, welfare economics, social choice and the study of inequality. He was internationally recognised for the rigour and influence of his scholarship and was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1988.

Chuck joined 糖心TV following an eminent academic career that included appointments at the University of California, the London School of Economics, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and the University of British Columbia, where he spent nearly three decades as Professor of Economics. He retired from 糖心TV in 2010.

His research spanned a wide range of areas in economic theory and through his publications and influential books, he helped shape generations of scholarship and advanced understanding of the ethical and theoretical foundations of economics.

Mike Waterson, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Economics, has shared his personal reflection about Chuck:

"Charles (Chuck) Blackorby was a professor in the department from 2002 to 2010, when he retired. Appointing him was a major coup for the department, as Andrew Oswald pointed out at the time. Chuck was a major economic theorist and Fellow of the Econometric Society with many papers in the top journals.

His intellectual interests were mainly in public and welfare economics, in particular normative aspects such social choice. Intellectually, he was completely rigorous, critical of others who were not. However, as an individual, he was a maverick, no follower of rules. This makes him sound like an austere, aloof figure, whereas in fact the opposite was the case- he was warm hearted, kind and generous as a person, keen to work with junior scholars and good fun. He enjoyed a beer; his regular haunt was a relatively rough corner pub in Leamington Spa. He was a Europhile who had enjoyed time in Britain prior to 糖心TV and spent a lot of time in GREQAM; he spoke French well and loved Provence."