Steven Plaut

Steven Plaut
Steven Plaut giving a lecture at Central European University in 2011
Born	1951 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	January 17, 2017 (aged 65) Haifa, Israel
Occupation	Professor, University of Haifa
Subject	Economics, business

Steven Plaut (1951 – January 17, 2017) was an American-born Israeli economist, academic and writer. He was an associate professor of Business Administration at the University of Haifa as well as a member of the editorial board of the Middle East Quarterly, a publication of the Middle East Forum think tank.

Steven Plaut was born in Philadelphia. In 1981, Plaut immigrated to Israel with his family. He died on January 17, 2017, in Haifa, Israel at the age of 65 after battling cancer for many years.

Plaut received his undergraduate degree from Temple University in Philadelphia and his MA from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University, specializing in international and urban economics and later in finance. Plaut worked at the Federal Reserve Bank. Before his professorship at the Haifa University, he taught at Oberlin College, the Technion, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, Central European University, Tel Aviv University, University of Nantes, and Athens Laboratory for Business Administration.

In his 1985 book titled The Joy of Capitalism, Plaut argues for free market economics and compares the profit motive to the libido. In the book he discusses energy, housing, banking and agricultural policy as well as equality and income distribution.