Victor Bulmer-Thomas

Victor Bulmer-Thomas is a British academic who has specialised in Latin America and the Caribbean. Born in London, his first experience of the Americas was as a V.S.O. in Belize (1966/7), where he taught several of the current leaders of the country. He then studied at Oxford University and wrote his doctorate on Costa Rica. In order to do this, he built an input-output table for the country that gave him a lifelong interest in constructing databases from primary sources.

His first academic post was at the Fraser of Allander Institute for Research on the Scottish Economy at Strathclyde University in Glasgow. He was one of the first to be appointed to this new Institute, where he worked with a brilliant team of economists building a model of the Scottish economy that required the construction of an input-output model. While at the Institute, he also worked as a consultant to the Moroccan government. This also involved the construction of an input-output table. His first published works were on the Scottish economy, including a study of the household savings rate and the Scottish balance of payments on the eve of oil production. However, his experience in the field of input-output analysis (he also buit an input-output table for Guatemala)led to the publication of his first book with a Foreword by the Nobel Laureate Wassily Leontief (Input-Output Analysis for Developing Countries: Sources, Methods and Applications, 1982).

He moved from Scotland in 1978 to take up a post as Lecturer in Development Economics at Queen Mary College (now Queen Mary) at London University. Here he was able to research on Latin America and he was fortunate to be invited to take part in a study group, led by his former supervisor Rosemary Thorp, on Latin America in the 1930s. Working on Central America, he found it necessary to construct the national accounts for the five countries of the region from 1920 onwards. This led to the publication in 1987 of The Political Economy of Central America since 1920.

He was invited in 1982 to be the guest editor for a special issue of the Journal of Latin American Studies on Central America. This was published in 1983 and he joined the Editorial Board in 1984 - a post he held without interruption for 25 years. From 1986-1997 he was also editor of the Journal of Latin American Studies. In 1988 he launched a Masters in Economics with special reference to Latin America at Queen Mary, which attracted many students from the region. Some of these students went on to do their Ph.D. under his supervision (before retiring from London University, he had supervised to completion some 30 doctoral dissertations).

In 1988 he became Reader in Economics of Latin America, the first person to hold that title in the United Kingdom, and in 1990 he was promoted to Professor of Economics. Two years later, he became the Director of London University's Institute of Latin American Studies, although he remained attached to Queen Mary. During his six years as Director, the Institute flourished and received a 5* (the highest ranking) in the Research Assessment Exercise. It was during this time as Director that he published his best known book The Economic History of Latin America since Independence. This has now been translated into Spanish, Japanese and Chinese and went into a second edition in 2003. While Director, he received honours from the governments of Brazil and Colombia as well as an OBE from the British government in recognition of his role in building up the reputation of the Institute.

He retired as Director in 1998, but remained on the staff of the Institute of Latin American Studies as Senior Research Fellow. It was during this time that he began to take an interest in the economic history of the Caribbean. However, this research was interrupted when he became the Director of Chatham House, the London home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 2001. Having by then published 20 books as sole author or editor, including the two volume Cambridge Economic History of Latin America, he was content to let research take a back seat while he concentrated on reviving the fortunes of Chatham House. He stepped down as Director of Chatham House in 2006, receiving a CMG from the British government in recognition of his achievements.

After leaving Chatham House at the end of 2006, he became a Visiting Professor at Florida International University where he is working on an economic history of the Caribbean since the Napoleonic Wars. He is also Professor Emeritus of London University, Senior Distinguished Fellow of the School of Advanced Studies at London University, Honorary Research Fellow of the University's Institute for the Study of the Americas and Associate Fellow at Chatham House. He is also a Director of the New India Investment Trust and the Caribbean Foundation.

He married Barbara Swasey from Belize in 1970 and they have three children. His hobbies include playing quartets, underwater photography, kayaking, walking and tennis.

See also

* Ivor Bulmer-Thomas Victor's father

External links

* [http://www.netamericas.net/Paginas/Bulmer-ThomasWP.asp webpage with biographical details]