Caribbean Development Bank to honor region’s 1st Nobel laureate

Lewis’ work “continues to generate global interest, particularly in the field of development economics and with respect to the outcomes of institutions and nations which have successfully applied policies which he proposed,” the CDB said Thursday.

“His primary concern was with the practical application of economics to matters of public policy. He was able to synthesize the different roles that regionalism; capital; government; institutions; and agriculture needed to play in the development of poor countries,” CDB President William Warren said.

Lewis, who died in 1991, served from 1970-1973 as the CDB’s first president.

In 1979, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for developing “two economic models which mark out the causes of poverty among the population of the developing countries, as well as the factors determining the unsatisfactory pace of development,” in the words of the Nobel committee.

The centenary commemoration will start with the 16th Annual Conference of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies under the theme “Towards Caribbean Prosperity and Happiness in an Equitable and Sustainable World,” to be held Jan. 14-16, 2015 in Castries/Rodney Bay, St. Lucia.

Lewis was born Jan. 23, 1915.