Ford International Professor of Economics Emeritus Evsey D. Domar, 82, whose students included the former chair of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors during a 25-year MIT career, died on April 1 in Emerson Hospital in Concord.
Professor Domar came to MIT in 1957 as a visiting professor of economics while on leave from Johns Hop-kins University and was named a professor the following year. He was appointed the Ford Professor in 1972, one of seven Institute chairs endowed by the Ford Foundation. He retired in 1984.
An expert on Soviet economics during the Cold War and an early champion of Keynesian theory, Professor Domar saw economics grow from an arcane subject debated by academics to an integral tool in formulating political and societal strategies. In 1980, with tongue in cheek, he created Domar's Law: "The worse it gets, the more we are needed."
Professor Domar, who taught at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins before arriving at MIT, consulted for the RAND Corp., the Ford Foundation, the Brookings Institution, the National Science Foundation, the Batelle Memorial Institute and the Institute for Defense Analysis.
Professor Domar, born in Lodz, Poland on April 16, 1914, was raised in Manchuria and emigrated to the United States in 1936. He earned the BA from UCLA in 1939, MS degrees in mathematics from the University of Michigan (1940) and Harvard University (1943), and the PhD in economics from Harvard in 1947.
He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He served on the executive committee of the American Economic Association from 1962-65 and was its vice president in 1970. He also was the president of the Association for Comparative Economics in 1970.
Professor Domar was a member of the board of editors of the American Economic Review from 1957-59 and contributed numerous articles to a scholarly publications.
His ever-present pipe in hand, he was a mentor to several generations of MIT students, including Laura D'Andrea Tyson, who served in the first Clinton administration.
Professor Domar is survived by his wife, Carola, of Concord; two daughters, Alice D. of Sudbury and Erica D. Banderob of Milton, and three granddaughters.
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Other obituaries
BARBARA MARKS
Barbara Marks, 79, of Fairfield, CT, died on March 20. She began working at MIT in 1954 and was a senior secretary in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics when she retired in 1990. Survivors include a son, Paul Marks of Fairfield.
ROGER S. NAPPIER
Roger S. Nappier, 75, of Jamaica Plain, died on March 18. He was a grounds worker in Physical Plant who retired in 1986 after 15 years at MIT. Survivors include his wife, Marjorie; two daughters, Lascene Hooker and Karen Harris, and a son, Rodger.
ALBERT J. PUKT
A funeral Mass was held at St. Mark's Church in Dorchester on March 8 for Albert J. Pukt, 78, of Falmouth Heights, who died on March 5. He was a machinist in the Department of Chemical Engineering when he retired in 1982 after 29 years at MIT.
Mr. Pukt leaves a daughter, Gayle Knipe of Marlboro; two sisters, Elizabeth Aylward of Taunton and Natalie Mahoney of Abington; a brother, Joseph of Abington, and several nieces and nephews.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 9, 1997.
