William D. Nordhaus, Sterling Professor of Economics, Emeritus, whose influential work as an economist transformed a field and who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering work on the economics of climate change, died on Oct. 30 following a battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. He was 85.
Nordhaus was also a central figure on the Yale campus for more than 50 years, teaching generations of undergraduate and graduate students and holding key administrative roles for the university, including as provost and vice president for finance and administration.
His influential work ranged widely, from the economics of climate change to the measurement of technological change, the interaction of the business cycle and the election cycle, and the measurement of economic welfare — farsighted work done jointly with the late James Tobin, himself a Yale Nobel laureate and one of the most influential economists of his day.
