Professor Robert (Bob) Lucas

Professor Robert (Bob) Lucas (1945–2026)

Bob Lucas grew up in Market Harborough and was the first in his family to graduate secondary school. A Grammar School teacher came to the family home to encourage Bob’s parents to keep him in school and for him apply to university. At LSE he earned a First Class BSc and MSc in Economics. His wife Sarah has recalled that the Kennedy Scholarship was one of the inflection points that changed the direction of his life.

After completing his PhD at MIT in 1973, Bob spent 49 years at Boston University’s Department of Economics, teaching countless students. He became a renowned authority on migration and development, with research also spanning labour markets, skill formation, trade and industrial policy, and inequality and intergenerational mobility. Appointed Associate Chair in only his second year as Assistant Professor, he was promoted to Professor in 1985. He authored four books, edited three others, and published over 75 papers in leading journals. His 2021 book Crossing the Divide: Rural Urban Migration in Developing Countries was published by Oxford University Press. He won the Gittner Award for undergraduate teaching in both 1994 and 2016. His department chair Professor Daniele Paserman wrote: “Bob Lucas set high standards for devotion to students and intellectual life within the department. We shall miss his unfailing courtesy and quiet sense of humor.”

Bob was an avid traveller, climber, and musician. He played double bass in the Leicestershire County School of Music’s Orchestra from the age of 11, touring across Europe. He hiked part of Mount Everest and was a New England Patriots fan.

He is survived by Sarah, their daughters Hayley and Kylie, two sons-in-law, and two grandsons.

We are grateful to Sarah for sharing Bob’s story with us, and extend our deepest condolences to his family.