It’s with great sadness that I pass on news of the passing of Barkley Rosser, Jr., a regular commenter on this weblog (under his own name!). He was among many things an intellect of extremely wide-ranging interests, from bubbles in exchange rates to the dynamics of transition economies, nonlinear dynamics and catastrophe theory to ecological economics.
I can’t add much to the January 2021 profile, titled “Man in Motion” (appropriate, since I couldn’t fathom how he kept up teaching, editing journals, and blogging (on Econospeak) and commenting all at the same time- that energy confirmed by Peter Dorman‘s farewell). If you are interested in his academic research, go to his Google Scholar page. If the math of complexity is beyond you (it’s beyond me), then this JEP article is great.
He started commenting on Econbrowser in 2005, before I even joined as a contributor. One of his first comments, within the first month of the blog, was on bubbles (and how according to Peter Garber they were econometrically indistinguishable from specification error). In general, Barkley’s comments were substantive, and backed by either his own research, or his own personal experiences and contacts. We all benefited from his long train of comments, stretching back to those first months of Econbrowser (which also included comments from Brad Delong, Calculated Risk, Economists View, EconLog, the OilDrum, ) — amidst those heady days of econoblogging. There are no commenters that I see from those days, that continued to comment into 2023.
The loss of his contributions will be deeply felt.
I appreciated Barkley’s presence on this blog and his comments. Abilities such as his and his contributions to knowledge make one feel rather inadequate. His death seems sudden. I recall some past comments from him about health but did not suspect that any of his health problems were imminently fatal. Although I had never met Barkley, I feel a loss as though I had lost someone I knew well.
Peter Dorman speaks for all of Barkley’s fellow bloggers:
https://econospeak.blogspot.com/2023/01/barkley-rosser-1948-2023.html
So true. “One of the sadder parts of aging is having to say final goodbye’s to so many people…”
Very sad. He always said what I was thinking…or at least what I thought I was thinking.
He was a valuable commenter here. I will miss him. I’d note he died young at only 74.
I will certainly miss Prof. Rosser. I am saddened to hear the news. He was gracious to share his thoughts and knowledge with us on this blog for many years.
“He was among many things an intellect of extremely wide-ranging interests” is accurate. and rare in today’s world. which is why i appreciated his commentary.
I am very sorry he’s gone. His comments were always thought provoking here, which is the only way I got to know him. He will be missed.
Barkes was always interesting and incisive. A great loss
Had some additional information (cause of death), personal interests, I thought readers might take interest in:
https://www.dnronline.com/obituaries/john-barkley-rosser-jr/article_5951f89e-e7fa-59c9-a041-9c86e5a89bfb.html