Duncan Black

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Duncan Black

Born	May 23, 1908(1908-05-23) Motherwell
Died	January 14, 1991(1991-01-14) (aged 82) Paignton
Nationality	British
Field	Social economics
Alma mater	University of Glasgow
Influences	Charles Dodgson Ronald Coase Anthony Downs

Duncan Black (23 May 1908 – 14 January 1991) was a Scottish economist who laid the foundations of social choice theory. In particular he was responsible for unearthing the work of many early political scientists, including Charles Dodgson, and was responsible for the Black electoral system, a Condorcet method whereby, in the absence of a Condorcet winner (e.g. due to a cycle), the Borda winner is chosen.

Black was born in Motherwell, Scotland, an industrial town south east of Glasgow, to a working class family. He graduated from the Dalziel Highschool in Motherwell and then studied mathematics and physics at the University of Glasgow. He then enrolled for a degree in economics and politics which he finished with first class honors in 1932. He started teaching at the newly formed Dundee School of Economics (later part of the University of Dundee). There Black was influenced by his colleague Ronald Coase, originator of the Theory of the Firm. Black later taught at the University College of North Wales (now Bangor University) and Glasgow.

Black had a hard time finding venues for publishing his work, and some of it was self published and he remained relatively unknown. Black also had visiting positions in the United States, at the universities of Rochester, Chicago, Virginia and Michigan State. These occurred after William H. Riker reviewed his work in 1961.^[1][2] He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980.^[3]

Archives

The archives for Duncan Black are maintained by the Archives of the University of Glasgow (GUAS).

See also

• Median voter theorem
• Public choice theory

References

1. ^ W. Riker, Voting and the Summation of Preferences: An Interpretive Bibliographical Review of Selected Developments During the Last Decade, American Political Science Review, 55 (1961).
2. ^ The Theory of Committees and Elections by Duncan Black, and Committee Decisions with Complementary Valuation by Duncan Black and R. A. Newing, Revised Second Editions, edited by Iain McLean, Alistair McMillan and Burt Monroe, Kluwer Academic Publishing, 1998.
3. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf. Retrieved 26 July 2011. 

Further reading

• Black, Duncan (1948). "On the Rationale of Group Decision-making". Journal of Political Economy 56: 23–34. doi:10.1086/256633. 
• Black, Duncan (1958). The Theory of Committees and Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
• Bernard Grofman, "Black, Duncan," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 1, pp. 250–51.

Persondata
Name	Black, Duncan
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	23 May 1908
Place of birth
Date of death	14 January 1991
Place of death