Marcus Alexis (February 26, 1932 – May 27, 2009) was professor emeritus of management & strategy at the

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

Kellogg School of Management The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (also known as Kellogg) is the business school of Northwestern University, a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1908, Kellogg is one of the oldest and most p ...

. He was a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and a commissioner with the

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

during the

Carter Administration Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. A Democrat from Georgia, Carter took office after defeating incumbent Republican President ...

. He was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1959, and was known for his work training and mentoring other African American Economists. He was awarded the Samuel Z. Westerfield Award by the National Economic Association in 1979, and was also awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of Minnesota and an Honorary Doctorate from Brooklyn College.

Education and early life

Alexis was born February 26, 1932, in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, in a family of 7 children. He attended New York City Public Schools and

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

. He then studied finance at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

and earned a doctorate in economics at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, completing post-doctoral work at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

Career

Alexis taught at

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

DePaul University DePaul University is a private university, private, Catholic higher education, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Congregation of the Mission, Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-centu ...

, the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

, and both the economics department and the

. He also served as dean of the business college of the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

. He was among the founders of the Caucus of Black Economists in 1969, now the

National Economic Association The National Economic Association (NEA) is a learned society established in 1969, focused on initiatives in the field of economics. The purposes of the Association are "to promote the professional lives of minorities within the profession. In a ...

, and was the organization's first chair. He help to found the

American Economic Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals acknowledged in business and academia. There are some 23,000 members. History and Constitution The AEA was esta ...

's summer program to prepare promising students from underrepresented groups for graduate programs in economics. Alexis was also chair of the

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (informally the Chicago Fed) is one of twelve regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, make up the United States' central bank. The Chicago Reserve Bank serves the Sevent ...

, and was a member of the

for two years under President

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

, including serving as acting chair.

Selected works

* Alexis, Marcus, and Charles Z. Wilson. "Organizational decision making." (1967). * Alexis, Marcus. "Some Negro-White differences in consumption." The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 21, no. 1 (1962): 11–28. * Haines Jr, George H., Leonard S. Simon, and Marcus Alexis. "Maximum likelihood estimation of central-city food trading areas." Journal of marketing research 9, no. 2 (1972): 154–159. * Alexis, Marcus. "A theory of labor market discrimination with interdependent utilities." The American Economic Review 63, no. 2 (1973): 296–302. * Alexis, Marcus. "Assessing 50 years of African-American economic status, 1940-1990." The American economic review 88, no. 2 (1998): 368–375.

References

1932 births 2009 deaths Writers from Brooklyn Northwestern University faculty African-American economists Labor economists Brooklyn College alumni University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni Michigan State University alumni 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people Presidents of the National Economic Association {{US-economist-stub