Thomas "Danny" Boston (circa 1948 - ) is an American economist who is professor emeritus of

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

and International Affairs in the

Sam Nunn School of International Affairs The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, at the Georgia Institute of Technology located in Atlanta, Georgia is the only professional school of international affairs at a major technological institution. Founded in 1990, the School was renam ...

at Georgia Tech. He is a past president of the National Economic Association.

Education and early life

Boston grew up in segregated

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

, where he participated as a child in the civil rights demonstrations attacked during

Ax Handle Saturday Ax Handle Saturday, also known as the Jacksonville riot of 1960, was a racially motivated attack that took place in Hemming Park (now known as James Weldon Johnson Park or JWJ Park) in Jacksonville, Florida, on August 27, 1960. A group of white ...

. He attended

West Virginia State University West Virginia State University (WVSU) is a public historically black, land-grant university in Institute, West Virginia. Founded in 1891 as the West Virginia Colored Institute, it is one of the original 19 land-grant colleges and universities ...

ROTC The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. Overview While ROTC graduate officers serve in all ...

program, graduating in 1968 as a commissioned Army officer. He received a

Purple Heart The Purple Heart (PH) is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after 5 April 1917, with the U.S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, w ...

for wounds received while serving as a reconnaissance platoon leader in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

, and left the army with the rank of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

. He was inducted into the West Virginia State University ROTC hall of fame in 1993. Following his army service, he earned graduate degrees in economics at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, where he met his wife, Catherine L. Ross.

Career

Boston taught economics at

Clark Atlanta University Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. Found ...

from 1976 to 1985, becoming chair of that economics department. He then taught at Georgia Institute of Technology from 1985 until his retirement in 2019. He was named the State of Georgia "Economics Educator of the Year." He is founder of the economic consulting company EuQuant, and was named "2016 Entrepreneur of the Year" by the Atlanta Business League.

Selected publications

* Boston, Thomas D. "Segmented labor markets: New evidence from a study of four race-gender groups." ILR Review 44, no. 1 (1990): 99–115. * Boston, Thomas D. "The effects of revitalization on public housing residents: A case study of the Atlanta Housing Authority." Journal of the American Planning Association 71, no. 4 (2005): 393–407. * Boston, Thomas D. Race, class and conservatism. Routledge, 2013. * Boston, Thomas D. Affirmative action and black entrepreneurship. Routledge, 1998. * Boston, Thomas D., and Linje R. Boston. "Secrets of gazelles: The differences between high-growth and low-growth business owned by African American entrepreneurs." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 613, no. 1 (2007): 108–130.

External links

2008 interview with Boston

References

Living people 20th-century American economists West Virginia State University alumni Cornell University alumni African-American economists Georgia Tech faculty Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century African-American educators 21st-century African-American educators Presidents of the National Economic Association {{economist-stub