Duncan K. Foley

Duncan K. Foley (born June 15, 1942) is an American economist. He is the Leo Model Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Previously, he was Associate Professor of Economics at MIT and Stanford, and Professor of Economics at Columbia University (Barnard College and Columbia University Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences). He has held visiting professorships at Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, UC Berkeley, and Dartmouth College, as well as the New School for Social Research (in 1995, prior to his permanent position starting in 1999).

Foley has served as the Co-Editor of ‘‘Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization’’ (1999–2001), as an Associate Editor of ‘‘Journal of Economic Theory’’ (1976–1981), and of ‘‘Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization’’ (1989–2014), and on the editorial boards of ‘‘Journal of Economic Literature’’ (1985–1991), ‘‘Metroeconomica’’ (1991–present),^[1] and ‘‘Princeton University Press Series on Complexity’’ (1993–2004). He also served on the Nominating Committee of the American Economics Association (1990).^[2]

His most-cited work was on Marxian economics and value theory, in particular his seminal book that put Das Kapital in a modern form, offering an accessible and rigorous introduction to Marx’s thought^[3] – this work disrupted his path to tenure.^[4]

However, at length he provides treatments of the history and theory of economics encompassing John Maynard Keynes, Hyman Minsky, David Ricardo, Jean-Baptiste Say, Adam Smith, and Piero Sraffa. Indeed, his work ranges across such topics as economics, physics, ecology, money, complexity and statistical reasoning, and problems of social coordination. Foley has contributed to political economy and public finance, monetary economics, global environmental economic policy and technological innovation, econometrics, Bayesian statistics and foundations for choice of theory, information theory, complex systems theory (thermodynamics / statistical mechanics) and economics (as well as classical political theory), statistical equilibrium economic modeling, economic dynamics, and other macroeconomics (including growth theory, business cycle theory and the theory of distribution). In the field of fair division, he is considered the first to introduce the concept of envy-free resource allocation.^[5][6][7]