Alice H. Amsden | |
---|---|
Born |
Alice Hoffenberg June 27, 1943 Brooklyn, New York |
Died | March 14, 2012 Cambridge, Mass. |
(aged 68)
Occupation | Political economist |
Academic background | |
Education | Cornell University (B.A., 1965) London School of Economics (Ph.D., 1971) |
School or tradition | Heterodox economics |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Development economics |
Sub discipline | Political economy |
Institutions |
UCLA Columbia University Harvard Business School The New School Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1994–2012) |
Main interests | Developmental states; late-industrializing economies; industrial policy |
Alice Hoffenberg Amsden (June 27, 1943 – March 14, 2012) was a political economist and scholar of state-led economic development. For the last two decades of her career, she was the Barton L. Weller Professor of Political Economy at MIT.
Amsden was known best for her work on the developmental state, which argued that state-led industrialization was a viable alternative to the market-oriented industrialization of North America and Europe. She argued that the "catching up" of late-industrializing economies, particularly the "Asian Tigers," was accomplished through government intervention that promoted organizational learning, arranged "reciprocal control mechanisms" between states and firms, and established price control and import substitution policies. Her work is viewed as a rebuttal of the Washington Consensus and neoclassical economic doctrine that sought to restrain state intervention in industrialization.
Born in New York City, Amsden received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her PhD from the London School of Economics. Professor Amsden began her career as an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and taught at University of California, Los Angeles, Barnard College at Columbia University, Harvard Business School and The New School before being appointed professor at MIT in 1994. She remained in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning until her death in 2012.