Robert Lucas

Robert E. Lucas Jr. was the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics and the College at the University of Chicago in the Business & Economics area, serving on the faculty for over four decades. He retired from teaching in 2015 but remained active in research until his passing on May 15, 2023. Born September 15, 1937, in Yakima, Washington, Lucas received a scholarship to attend the University of Chicago at age 17, earning his B.A. in History in 1959. Inspired by economists like Milton Friedman, he pursued a Ph.D. in Economics there, completing it in 1964. His early career included a lectureship at Chicago (1962-1963) and a faculty position at the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie-Mellon University (1963-1974), before returning to Chicago in 1974, where he was appointed John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor in 1980.

Lucas transformed macroeconomics by developing and applying rational expectations theory, earning the 1995 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The Swedish Academy recognized him as having the greatest influence on macroeconomic research since 1970. His Lucas critique argued that policy evaluations must account for agents' behavioral changes. Seminal works include “Expectations and the Neutrality of Money” (1972), introducing the islands model; Studies in Business-Cycle Theory (1981); Models of Business Cycles (1985); Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics (1989, with Nancy L. Stokey and Edward C. Prescott); Lectures on Economic Growth (2002); and Collected Papers on Monetary Theory (2013). His research on business cycles, monetary neutrality, human capital (Uzawa-Lucas model), asset pricing (Lucas tree), firm size (span-of-control), and international capital flows (Lucas paradox) reshaped economic policy analysis. Lucas led the Econometric Society and American Economic Association as president, edited volumes like Rational Expectations and Econometric Practice (1981, with Thomas J. Sargent), and received the Phoenix Prize (2016) from Chicago's Division of Social Sciences, along with fellowships in the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Philosophical Society.