John Barkley Rosser Jr. (April 12, 1948 - January 10, 2023) was a mathematical economist and Professor of Economics at James Madison University in

Harrisonburg, Virginia Harrisonburg is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is also the county seat of the surrounding Rockingham County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. At the 2 ...

since 1988. He was known for work in nonlinear economic dynamics, including applications in economics of

catastrophe theory In mathematics, catastrophe theory is a branch of bifurcation theory in the study of dynamical systems; it is also a particular special case of more general singularity theory in geometry. Bifurcation theory studies and classifies phenomena cha ...

chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have co ...

, and complexity theory (complex dynamics,

complexity economics Complexity economics is the application of complexity science to the problems of economics. It sees the economy not as a system in equilibrium, but as one in motion, perpetually constructing itself anew.Beinhocker, Eric D. The Origin of Wealth: Ev ...

). With Marina V. Rosser he invented the concept of the "new traditional economy". He introduced into economic discourse the concepts of

chaotic bubble Chaotic bubbles within physics and mathematics, occur in cases when there are any dynamic processes that generate bubbles that are nonlinear. Many exhibit mathematically chaotic patterns consistent with chaos theory. In most systems, they arise ou ...

chaotic hysteresis A nonlinear dynamical system exhibits chaotic hysteresis if it simultaneously exhibits chaotic dynamics (chaos theory) and hysteresis. As the latter involves the persistence of a state, such as magnetization, after the causal or exogenous force or ...

(op. cit., p. 326), and econochemistry. He also invented the concepts of the megacorpstate and

hypercyclic morphogenesis {{no footnotes, date=February 2023 Hypercyclic morphogenesis refers to the emergence of a higher order of self-reproducing structure or organization or hierarchy within a system, first introduced by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. in 1991 (Chap. 12). It in ...

. He was the first to provide a mathematical model of the

period of financial distress {{nofootnotes, date=September 2009 A period of financial distress occurs when the price of a company or an asset or an index of a set of assets in a market is declining with the danger of a sudden crash of value occurring, either because the company ...

in a speculative bubble. With Marina V. Rosser and Ehsan Ahmed, he was the first to argue for a two-way positive link between income inequality ( economic inequality) and the size of an underground economy in a nation.

Rosser's equation In economics, Rosser's equation (named after J. Barkley Rosser, Jr.) calculates future US Social Security Administration Trust Fund balances and payments as the ratio of benefit payments in real terms for a given income level to be received the y ...

has been used to forecast ratios of future Social Security benefits to current ones in real terms.Rosser, J. Barkley Jr., 2005. “Student ignorance about Social Security,” available at http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb

Background and personal life

Born in Ithaca, New York, Rosser received a BA in economics with a minor in mathematics in 1969, an MA in economics in 1972, and a Ph.D. in economics in 1976, studying with

Eugene Smolensky Eugene Smolensky is an economist and emeritus professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, where he served as Dean from 1988 to 1997. He is Vice President of the International Institute of Public Finance an ...

, all from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. On August 15, 1984 he became legally engaged to the former Marina Rostislavovna Vcherashnaya in Moscow, USSR, officially set to be married at 3 PM, November 13, 1984. After he returned to the United States, she was forced to resign from her position as Senior Researcher in the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO). He was not granted a visa to return to Moscow to marry her, making them into a blocked marriage case. This violated the Helsinki Accords, signed by the Soviet Union in 1975. After diplomatic efforts, linked to the emerging

perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...

program of Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, their case was resolved when Marina was allowed to travel to the United States on April 4, 1987. This was the first resolution of such a case in the Soviet Union, and became a precedent helping to establish in international law more generally the right of people to marry freely whom they choose across national boundaries. They married on May 24, 1987, and she is now Professor of Economics at James Madison University also. His father was the late J. Barkley Rosser Sr. (1907–1989), a prominent mathematician.

Career

Rosser joined the economics department at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia in 1977, where he has been Professor of Economics since 1988 and Kirby L. Cramer Jr. Professor Business Administration since 1996. He has published several books and over 200 journal articles, book chapters, and book reviews in a wide variety of sub-fields of economics (see External Link for recent papers and complete cv). He served as Editor of the '' Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization'' from 2001–2010. In 2012 he became Founding Editor-in-Chief of the ''Review of Behavioral Economics''. As of 2018, he is also Coeditor of ''New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics'', 4th edition. In 2009, Rosser was named a Fellow of Economists for Peace and Security. In 2010 he received a festschrift, Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics, Finance, and the Social Sciences: Essays in Honour of John Barkley Rosser Jr., edited by Gian-Italo Bischi, Carl Chiarella, and Laura Gardini, Berlin Heidelberg: Springer. In 2011, he received an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. In 2012 he was named Ambassador of the University of Urbino, Italy. Since 2007 he has blogged at Econospeak, http://econospeak.blogspot.com. In 2019, Rosser was elected President of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences.

References

External links

John Barkley Rosser Jr.'s Home Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosser, J. Barkley Jr. 1948 births Living people 21st-century American economists University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni James Madison University faculty