JOHNSON, D(avid) Gale 1916-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born July 10, 1916, in Vinton, IA; died of pneumonia related to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) April 13, 2003, in Northampton, MA (one source says Amherst, MA). Economist, educator, and author. Johnson was a renowned expert in the area of agricultural economics who also took an interest in the economies of communist China and the Soviet Union. He was a graduate of Iowa State University, where he received his B.S. in 1938 and a Ph.D. in 1945. His master's degree was earned at the University of Wisconsin in 1939, and he also attended graduate school at the University of Chicago. His teaching career began at Iowa State, where he was a research associate and then assistant professor of agricultural economics in the early 1940s. But Johnson spent the rest of his career at the University of Chicago, where he taught for many decades, becoming a professor emeritus in 1986. At Chicago he also served as dean from 1960 to 1970 and was chair of the economics department from 1971 to 1975 and from 1980 to 1984. In 1975 he was vice president and dean of faculties, and from 1976 to 1980 he held the office of provost. Johnson, who spent his childhood growing up on a farm, was renowned for his work in agricultural economics, and he did groundbreaking work in areas such as farm employment and commodities pricing. His interest in agriculture led him to study the economics of farming not only in the United States but also as it applied to Russian and Chinese economics. Consequently, Johnson was made director of the Center for East Asian Studies from 1994 to 1998. His ideas were published in dozens of books, including Agricultural Price Policy and International Trade (1954), Farm Commodity Programs: An Opportunity for Change (1973), Progress of Economic Reform in the People's Republic of China, (1982), and The Economics of Agriculture (1996).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Writers Directory, 18th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2003.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, April 17, 2003, Section 3, p. 13.

New York Times, April 17, 2003, p. C13.