George Rosen, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, died Jan. 8, 2018, at 97.

Born in Russia, Rosen immigrated to the United States with his widowed mother in 1923. After graduating in 1940 from Brooklyn College, he earned a master’s degree in economics from Princeton in 1942. He then enlisted in the Army. In 1949, he completed his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton.

For several years, he worked for the State Department until he joined the MIT Center for International Studies for a research project on Indian industrial-development policy in Bombay. This began his long career as a development economist, specializing in India and other Asian countries. In 1962, he joined the Rand Corp.

In 1967, Rosen went to Manila to become the chief economist of the Asian Development Bank, supervising the bank’s funded development projects all over Asia. Returning to the United States in 1971, he became professor and head of the department of economics at UIC and remained there until retiring in 1985. He authored 10 scholarly books, including one about the politics of building a new campus on the West Side of Chicago.

Rosen is survived by his wife, Sylvia; a son; and two grandchildren.

Graduate memorials are written by the APGA.

Class Year: 
Graduate Class of 1949