In
memory of Bill Branson
William H. Branson was born on February 14, 1938 in Springfield, Illinois and died in Princeton, New Jersey on August 15, 2006. He obtained a B. S. from the U.S.
Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland in 1959, an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964 and a Ph. D. in Economics from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts in1967. He joined the economics faculty at Princeton University in 1966 and was since 2002 professor emeritus
there. The obituary posted August 18 on the Princeton web site is reproduced below. His children have also an email address at WHBransonMemorial@hotmail.com
that they can use to receive questions or suggestions concerning memorial plans.
He was the first
Director of Research in International Studies at the National Bureau of
Economic Research, 1978-92. His bibliography there includes 122 papers,
the
last two of which were NBER Working Papers 11517 and 11713, titled
“Regime-switching Behavior of the Term Structure of Forward Markets,”
(with
Elena Tchernykh), and “Monetary and Exchange Rate Policy Coordination
in
ASEAN+1,” (with Conor N. Healy), respectively.
Bill visited the Faculty of Economics at Nova several times since 1984 when he began working on a World Bank report Portugal's Entry into the European
Communities: Challenges and Opportunities. Some of his work in development and transition economics appeared in the Nova Economics Working Paper
series in the 1990s and he was well known to the Nova faculty.
Louka Katseli, one of his numerous former students (who also gave an early SATPEG seminar at Nova), wrote the following in a letter to colleagues at the OECD,
where Bill worked on several occasions at the Economics Department and the Development Centre: "Bill was much more than a brilliant economist with pioneering
contributions on exchange rate determination and policy and a keen sense for putting theory into the service of policy-making. He inspired and I dare say shaped the
thinking of all of his students by his relentless pursuit of analytical reasoning and thorough empirical testing, openness to new ideas and impressive ability to explain,
simplify and communicate difficult concepts and make them appear easy".
Bill is survived by four children: Kristin, William, Emily and Katya, and a baby granddaughter, Margaret. Bill's ashes will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery
and a memorial service is planned at Princeton University.
There will be a service in memory of Bill Branson at the Colares church on September 8 at 7 pm. This is the parish of Apple Beach where Bill and his many Portuguese
friends spent happy times together and it is the birthday of our late mother and mother in law (one of his admirers). From Lisbon CRIL or CREL beltway take IC19
to Sintra then EN 247 to Colares, turn left after bridge up a steep hill to the churchyard: Igreja de Colares
Maria Luiza de Macedo luísa.macedo@acad-ciencias.pt
Rita Almeida Ribeiro rar@uninova.pt
Jorge Braga de Macedo jbmacedo@fe.unl.pt
Princeton professor William Branson, who was
a pioneer in
the field of international economics, died Tuesday, Aug. 15, in
Princeton from
complications from throat cancer. He was 68.
Branson, who joined the faculty
in 1967, was the John Foster Dulles Professor Emeritus in International
Affairs
and professor emeritus of economics and international affairs. He
taught
undergraduate and graduate classes in macroeconomic theory and policy,
international finance and trade, and economic development. His research
focused
primarily on foreign exchange markets and the macroeconomic problems
facing
developing and transition economies.
"With Dale Henderson, he
developed the 'portfolio balance' approach to exchange rate
determination, an
approach that emphasizes changes in the relative supplies of assets
denominated
in different currencies as a fundamental cause of exchange rate
movements," said Gene Grossman, the Jacob Viner Professor of
International
Economics and director of the International Economics Section at
Princeton.
"Bill was a longtime
consultant to the World Bank and other international institutions,
where he
lent sage advice on macroeconomic policy and financial structure to
many
developing countries," he said. "Many students will remember him for
his widely used textbook, 'Macroeconomic Theory and Policy.' Colleagues
will
remember his broad interests in international economics and his fine
leadership
of the international studies group at the National Bureau of Economic
Research,
a role that he capably filled for 15 years."
Branson was born on Feb. 14,
1938, in Springfield, Ill. A 1959 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy,
he served
as a supply officer in the Navy for five years while pursuing graduate
studies
at the University of California-Berkeley, where he earned his M.A. in
1964. He
received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
1967.
After two years on the Princeton
faculty, Branson spent a year on leave as a senior staff economist with
the
President's Council of Economic Advisers. He began serving as a
consultant to
the World Bank in 1981, working on stabilization and structural
adjustment programs
in Indonesia, Kenya, Turkey, Yugoslavia and Portugal.
He also was a consultant with the
International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, the U.S.
Treasury
Department and the international Organization for Economic Cooperation
and
Development. He was director of research in international studies and a
research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research from
1978 to
1993. In addition he was a visiting professor at institutions in
Sweden,
Austria, France, Greece and Italy.
The author of numerous articles
for professional journals, Branson first published "Macroeconomic
Theory
and Policy" in 1972. It was translated into several other languages and
published in two more editions. His book "Macroeconomics" (co-written
with James Litvack) was published in 1976.
Branson, who became a full
professor at Princeton in 1972, was named the Jacob Viner Professor of
International Economics in 1988 and to the Dulles professorship in
1992. He
transferred to emeritus status in 2000.
Branson is survived by his
children Kristin, William and Emily Branson, and Ekaterina
Zamyshlyaeva; and by
his granddaughter Morgan Branson Lynch.
A memorial service is being
planned at the University in the fall. The date of the service and the
recipient charity of memorial contributions will be announced within a
week.
Questions may be sent to WHBransonMemorial@hotmail.com.