W. Arthur Lewis

Sir
W. Arthur Lewis
Sir W. Arthur Lewis
	Official Nobel Prize photo, c. 1979
Born	William Arthur Lewis; 23 January 1915; Castries, Saint Lucia, British Windward Islands
Died	15 June 1991 (aged 76); Bridgetown, Saint Michael, Barbados
Citizenship	Saint Lucian; British;
Alma mater	London School of Economics
Known for	Development economics; Dual-sector model; Lewis turning point; Industrial structure; History of the world economy;
Spouse	Gladys Jacobs Lewis (m. 1947)
Children	2 daughters
Relatives	Allen Montgomery Lewis (brother)
Awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1979)
	Scientific career
Fields	Economics
Institutions	London School of Economics (1938–48); University of Manchester (1948–58); University of West Indies (1959–63); Princeton University (1963–91);
Thesis	The Economics of Loyalty Contracts (1940)
Doctoral advisor	Sir Arnold Plant

Sir William Arthur Lewis (23 January 1915 – 15 June 1991) was a Saint Lucian economist and the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University. Lewis remains the only black person to have won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

W. Arthur Lewis was a pioneering development economist, especially famous for his “dual-sector model” of economic development. In his 1954 paper “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour,” he described a poor country as having two sectors: a traditional (largely agricultural) sector with surplus labor, and a modern capitalist sector. Lewis showed how surplus labor could be transferred from the traditional sector into the capitalist sector, fueling industrial growth.