Morris Bornstein, emeritus professor of economics, passed away in Ann Arbor on September 25, 2012 at the age of eighty-five. A true native son of Michigan, Bornstein attended public schools in Detroit and received three degrees from the University of Michigan: AB in 1947, AM in 1948, and his PhD in economics in 1952. His doctoral dissertation produced a study of “Banking Policy and Economic Development” in Brazil. Upon completion of his doctorate, Bornstein entered service as a U.S. government economist and was stationed in various agencies and locales---even including Brazil!---until he left the government and returned to Ann Arbor to join the professorial ranks of the economics faculty in 1958.

Professor Bornstein was promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor in 1962 and to full Professor just two years later in 1964. He retired as an emeritus professor in 1992. In 1966-69 Dr. Bornstein served the University as director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies.

Over time, Dr. Bornstein served his larger professional community in numerous important ways; including as a consultant to the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Ford Foundation, the Institute of International Education, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank. As well, he served on the editorial boards of some of the most prestigious journals in his field, including The Journal of Comparative Economics.

Dr. Bornstein also held visiting research appointments at Harvard University’s Russian Research Center, 1962-63; Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, 1969-70, and the French Ministry of Research and Technology, 1991.

Dr. Bornstein’s scholarly publications on comparative economic systems, the economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and the economics of transition included seven books (some translated into Italian, Spanish, Chinese or French) and sixty journal articles and chapters in collective volumes. His principal contributions to the economics literature include his analyses of the Soviet price system, the modeling of economic systems as integrated subsystems of property ownership, and comparisons of economic reforms in various socialist planned economies. His textbook, Comparative Economic Systems (in seven editions) was widely used in college courses over a period of thirty years.

-Saul H. Hymans, Emeritus Professor of Economics