Erik Thorbecke, one of the creators of a widely used metric for measuring poverty, died on April 26 in Fort Bragg, California. He was 97.

Thorbecke joined Cornell in 1974, serving as the H.E. Babcock Professor of Economics and Food Economics in the Department of Economics (College of Arts and Sciences) and the Division of Nutritional Sciences (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) from 1978 to 2001; he became professor emeritus in 2001. Specializing in economic and agricultural development, poverty alleviation and nutrition, his efforts to address poverty and injustice had a global impact. His scholarship, spanning five decades, helped shape modern development economics. 

“Erik Thorbecke will always be special for me, not just for his intellectual commitments and passion for research, but also because of his innate sense of justice and the high ethical standards he brought to his work and life,” said Kaushik Basu, the Carl Marks Professor of International Studies (A&S).

Like many economists, Basu was familiar, long before he came to Cornell, with the name “Thorbecke” from the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) Index, introduced in a 1984 paper – one of the most highly cited studies on poverty – with James Foster, Ph.D. ’82 and Joel Greer, Ph.D. ’85.

Since expanded to a family of indices, FGT has emerged as the globally accepted technique of poverty assessment and is used internationally for measuring the severity and distribution of poverty, said David Sahn, International Professor of Economics in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the Department of Economics.

“Professor Erik Thorbecke was a towering and inspiring figure. His commitment and influence were felt by an entire generation of economists and scholars focused on promoting inclusive economic development,” Sahn said. “I witnessed Erik’s enduring dedication to his students, both at Cornell and at the African Economic Research Consortium in Nairobi where he mentored hundreds of students. He expected and received the best of those who were fortunate enough to have him as a teacher, mentor and colleague.”

Many of Thorbecke’s students have risen to prominent policymaking positions in government, international organizations and in academia, Sahn said. Thorbecke was engaged in advising United Nations organizations, nongovernmental organizations and governments – including Peru, Spain, Kenya and Indonesia.

“Professor Thorbecke’s academic influence is unquestionable. What I wish to emphasize currently, however, is his generous and selfless contribution to capacity building, particularly for a huge number of African economists,” said Augustin Fosu, professor of economics at the University of Ghana, who worked with Thorbecke when Fosu was the director of research at the African Economic Research Consortium and Thorbecke was chair of its Poverty, Income Distribution and Labor Market Issues thematic group.

“Erik was a mentor, a colleague and a friend,” said Ravi Kanbur, the T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs and International Professor of Applied Economics and Management in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and professor of economics (A&S). “Retirement for Erik was not really retirement. He worked and traveled as extensively as ever for years to come, particularly with his work on poverty and inequality in Africa, giving us the benefit of his analytical sharpness and policy experience.”

Erik Thorbecke was born in Berlin in 1929 into a prominent Dutch family. His great-grandfather Johan Rudolf Thorbecke played a role in revising the constitution of the Netherlands in 1848 and served as prime minister of the country on three occasions. Erik Thorbecke’s father, Willem J. R. Thorbecke, was a professor and served as an ambassador to China. His great-great-grandfather Fernando Wood was a mayor of New York City in the mid-19th century. 

He earned degrees from the Netherlands School of Economics, now part of Erasmus University Rotterdam, in 1948 and 1949 and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1957. 

Thorbecke taught at Iowa State University for nearly 15 years, during which he helped direct the Iowa-Peru project, connecting some of the state’s universities with government agencies in planning economics and agriculture. He also worked as a senior administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development during its early years in the 1960s. 

At Cornell, he served as chair of the Department of Economics from 1975 to 1978, when he added an appointment with Cornell’s Division of Nutritional Sciences through CALS.

He spent time as a visiting faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley; Johns Hopkins University; the University of Tunis; and Erasmus University, Rotterdam. In addition to contributing hundreds of articles and book chapters to the field, he served on the editorial boards of major international journals such as World Development, The Pakistan Development Review, China Economic Review and The Journal of Socio-Economics. 

Thorbecke was preceded in death by his wife, Charla, and one son; he is survived by two sons. 

Kate Blackwood is a writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.