Douglass C. North

Douglass C. North, PhD, co-recipient of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and the Spencer T. Olin Professor Emeritus in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Monday, Nov. 23, 2015, at his summer home in Benzonia, Mich. He was 95.

“A lot of people were horrified that it was the first time a political scientist got the prize,” says Douglass C. North in a video interview on the 2009 Nobel prize in economics. North North, a 1993 recipient of the prestigious award, defends this year’s winners, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, as pioneers in the New Institutional Economics that uses an interdisciplinary approach to research. Traditional economists who favor formal mathematical model-based theory are critical of the institutional approach and Nobel recognition of the social sciences versus pure economics. North talks about this year’s winners, their work and New Institutional Economics in accompanying video.

“The Future of Freedom” will be the topic of “Conversation” when scholars gather Nov. 13 at Washington University for the second of a four-part series of discussions on key issues that will affect the future of the university, the community and the world. Arts & Sciences is sponsoring the four “Conversations,” which are free and open to the public, as part of the university’s 150th anniversary celebration. “The Future of Freedom Conversation” will be held from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in Graham Chapel.