Portrait of Robert Lucas Jr.

Birthday profile

Robert Lucas Jr.

Robert Lucas Jr., American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2023)

Born
September 15, 1937
Died
May 15, 2023
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1937

About Robert Lucas Jr.

Robert Emerson Lucas Jr. was an American economist at the University of Chicago. Widely regarded as the central figure in the development of the new classical approach to macroeconomics, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1995 "for having developed and applied the hypothesis of rational expectations, and thereby having transformed macroeconomic analysis and deepened our understanding of economic policy". N. Gregory Mankiw characterized him as "the most influential macroeconomist of the last quarter of the 20th century". In 2020, he ranked as the 10th most cited economist in the world. Lucas attended the University of California, Berkeley, as a first-year graduate student, but he left Berkeley due to financial reasons and returned to Chicago in 1960, where he earned a PhD in economics in 1964. Lucas was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1995. Lucas is well known for his investigations into the implications of rational expectations in macroeconomic theory. The divorce stipulation had a clause that entitled Cohen to half of his Nobel prize winnings if the prize were to be awarded before October 31, 1995, which ended up being the case.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Robert Lucas Jr. timeline

  1. Lucas attended the University of California, Berkeley, as a first-year graduate student, but he left Berkeley due to financial reasons and returned to Chicago in 1960, where he earned a PhD in economics in 1964.
  2. Lucas was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1995.
  3. The divorce stipulation had a clause that entitled Cohen to half of his Nobel prize winnings if the prize were to be awarded before October 31, 1995, which ended up being the case.
  4. In 2020, he ranked as the 10th most cited economist in the world.

The world when Robert Lucas Jr. was born

Robert Lucas Jr. was born in 1937. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1937

  • #1 song"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" – Ella Fitzgerald
  • Top movieSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  • Best-selling bookOf Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJoe Louis becomes heavyweight champion
  • Top headlineHindenburg zeppelin explodes in New Jersey
  • Technology milestoneGolden Gate Bridge opens in San Francisco
  • Defining fadSwing music
  • Notable inventionShopping cart
  • World population2.30 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population128.8M

1937 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Robert Lucas Jr.'s birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19372026
Gas$0.20$3.45/gal
Average home$5,200$435,000
Average income$3,000$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population128.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.