Memoriam

Dr. H. Peter Gray, 91, of Belle Mead, NJ, passed away peacefully in Arden Courts, Yardley, PA, on Jan. 21, 2016. Dr. Gray was born in Cheltenham, England, on July 4, 1924, the son of the late Frederick James Gray and Annie (Burch) Gray. He was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School, served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II and earned degrees in Modern Languages and economics at Queens College, Cambridge. In 1953, Dr. Gray emigrated to Canada, and in 1956, to the United States, where he married Jean (Mathieson) Gray. He and his wife moved to California, where they both pursued and earned Ph.D.s in economics at the University of California, Berkeley. On completion of his course work at Berkeley, Dr. Gray accepted a fellowship at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, and then a professorship at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. In 1968, he accepted a professorship at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he remained until his retirement in 1990.

During his long academic career, Dr. Gray authored or co-authored 22 books and over 150 articles and served as president of the Eastern Economics Association and the International Trade and Finance Association. Dr. Gray also taught at universities in Thailand, China, Denmark and Costa Rica, and lectured for the United States Information Agency in a broad group of countries ranging across the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific. In his spare time, he was an ardent scuba diver, loved solving crossword puzzles, especially the Sunday New York Times, reading murder mysteries, attending the theatre, and enjoying good food and wine with friends and family. Dr. Gray is survived by his wife of 59 years, Jean. Donations may be made to Queens College, Cambridge. Please go to www.queens.cam.ac.uk/alumni-support/giving-to-queens. Please designate Queens as the recipient and note that the donation is in memory of H. Peter Gray.

1925-2015

Professor Manoranjan (Jan) Dutta, one of the first economists of Indian-American heritage, died on February 22, 2015, from complications after a stroke. A professor emeritus at Rutgers University, he pioneered American engagement with Asian-Pacific economies. He chaired the National Advisory Council for South Asian Affairs and served as President of the Board of Trustees of the American Committee on Asian Economic Studies (ACAES). ACAES is an organization he founded in 1982 to build new initiatives in the study of Asia in collaboration with economists in China, Thailand, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and all over Asia. In 1990, he founded the Journal of Asian Economics. From an initial two issues a year, the Journal expanded to its present six. Read more from daughter Kavery Kaul's tribute.

Professor Manoranjan (Jan) Dutta, one of the first economists of Indian-American heritage, died on February 22, 2015, from complications after a stroke. A professor emeritus at Rutgers University, he pioneered American engagement with Asian-Pacific economies. He chaired the National Advisory Council for South Asian Affairs and served as President of the Board of Trustees of the American Committee on Asian Economic Studies (ACAES). ACAES is an organization he founded in 1982 to build new initiatives in the study of Asia in collaboration with economists in China, Thailand, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and all over Asia. In 1990, he founded the Journal of Asian Economics. From an initial two issues a year, the Journal expanded to its present six.

The author of many books like The Asian Economy and Asian Money and The United States of Europe: The European Union and the Euro Revolution, he specialized in the economics of globalization. A Fulbright Senior Specialist, he was a frequent guest lecturer in the U.S. and internationally.

Born in India on October 1, 1925, he received his B.A. from Presidency College and his M.A. from the University of Calcutta. In 1958, he arrived as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School where he became the first student to earn a Ph.D. under Nobel Laureate Lawrence Klein. In 1962, he joined the Rutgers faculty, offering students their first courses in the then-new field of econometrics.
A student leader in India's fight for independence, in the U.S. he battled for the rights of Indian-Americans, uniting the community as a social, cultural and political force in America. In 1967, he founded the Association of Indians in America (AIA), the oldest organization of Asian Indian immigrants in the United States with chapters nationwide. He is survived by his wife Kanak, his daughter Kavery, and his grandchildren Usha and Ashok. His life had a fullness that leaves ours less filled.

Robert C. Stuart passed away in Bellingham, Washington after a long illness. He is survived by his wife, a son, daughter, grandson, and brother.

Robert C. Stuart was born in British Columbia, where he attended the University of British Columbia, before completing his dissertation in economics at the University of Wisconsin in 1969. Robert served as a faculty member at Rutgers University from 1968 until his retirement in 2005. Bob taught for many years at Princeton, filling its gap in Soviet/Russian economics. He served as chair of economics at Rutgers from 1976 to 1979 and from  1986 to 1989. Robert edited Comparative Economic Studies from 1997 to 2002. Many of today's scholars of comparative economics got their first publications under Bob's editorship. Read more from Paul Gregory's memorial to Bob in the journal, Comparative Economic Studies.

Read more: Robert C. Stuart

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Ira Gang Obituary

Ira N. Gang passed away on Friday, July 24, 2026 at RWJ University Hospital in New Brunswick after a short illness. He was 71.

A Professor of Economics who specialized in Development Economics, he was a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, and received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University. He joined the faculty of Rutgers University in 1986 where he taught classes in Development, Education and Population Economics and graduate seminars in Topics in Development. Ira received tenure in 1992 and soon after became a full Professor. He published over 200 papers on development, migration and public policy, public choice, political economy and labor economics in leading economics journals. He was the founding editor of the Review of Development Economics, and was an Associate Editor/Editorial Board member of several journals, including the Journal of Population Economics and was a Research Fellow at IZA Bonn, Glo, the University of Regensburg, and several other academic institutions. He often carried around with him a paper in the works wherever he went and his shirts often were marked by ink-stained pockets. He was a recipient of both Fulbright and Alexander von Humboldt fellowships during his career.

Ira greatly enjoyed mentoring undergraduate and graduate students throughout their years in school and beyond and loved both his own research and teaching. One of his mentees wrote in the preface of his dissertation that Ira "taught me to truly enjoy economics and made it fun." His work took him to India, Germany, Israel, England and Tajikistan as well as other countries. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Manchester (England); the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi; WIDER, Helsinki; and taught specialized graduate classes at Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University over the course of his career. After the fall of the Berlin Wall he spent many summers visiting the Charles University in Prague mentoring economics students on the 'new' economics. The events of the past several years had him delivering rather wonkish explanations of tariffs and other issues at the dinner table. Though he appreciated art - and studied it as an undergraduate - he truly loved the study of economics.

As colleagues learn of his passing, everyone has used the word "kindness" to describe Ira. Their tributes contain such sentences as: "one of the kindest, most decent colleagues I know," and "someone who was an unforgettable support for us and one of the kindest people I have ever known."

Think of him if you share his white noise tv movies, pre-code movies with Barbara Stanwyck or the musicals of Fred and Ginger. He leaves behind a dream unfinished tome entitled "Coffee Shops of the Great Museums of the World," notes for which he jokingly took while accompanying his wife to museums. Have a cup of good strong black coffee, preferably Peets, in his memory.

Most of all, Ira took great joy and pleasure in the accomplishments of his sons. He is survived by his wife of 36 years, Gail Alterman; his sons Joshua and Eli and daughter-in-law Laurie; as well as his sister Mollye Noah and her husband Richard.

If you are able, please donate blood or platelets in his memory. Link: https://www.rwjbh.org/treatment- care/blood-donation/ In lieu of that he would ask you to support Women's Health Issues and abortion rights (such as https://www.ncjw.org/about/ ) or any liberal Democratic issue of your choice.

London, March 2024 The Girl in Blue - Henrietta - holds the hand of her deceased baby brother, Thomas, on her right. Henrietta later marries and names her child - Thomas Malthus - after her brother. IYKYK, or you took his class on Population Economics. William Hogarth, The Honorable Graham Children, 1742 National Gallery, London

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/william-hogarth-the-graham-children