The sad news reached me during a time when we celebrate many college graduations and other milestones.
John M. Quigley, a renowned urban economist and regional scientist, passed away last Saturday, May 12, 2012.
The news reached me via David E. Boyce, both an INFORMS Fellow and an RSAI Fellow.
The Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California Berkeley issued a statement on his passing, and Ed Glaeser of Harvard University wrote the following column for Bloomberg on Quigley's outstanding contributions to the understanding of housing and its pricing, "An Economist Who Changed the Way We Think About Housing." in which he also noted the important role that Quigley played in mentoring young scholars.
I couldn't agree more.
As a relatively fresh PhD, I published both co-authored (with Stella Dafermos) and single-authored papers in the journal, Regional Science and Urban Economics, on spatial competition and oligopolies and just this morning I was working on a draft of a paper that cites the paper published therein with Dafermos in 1987, which, in my opinion, contains some of the very first ideas that are relevant supply chain network competition. John Quigley was then the Editor in Chief of this journal.
In addition, David E. Boyce wrote in a message, reprinted below, that went out to RSAI Fellows today:
It seems appropriate to mention at this time John's role in establishing the RSAI Fellows Award. On November 7, 2000, I sent a letter to Geoffrey Hewings, then President of RSAI, proposing the establishment of a Fellows Award for our association. I did not discuss the proposal, or argue for its implementation, but only asked that it be presented to the RSAI Council for discussion.
As I recall, one member of the Council especially liked this idea, drafted a resolution for its implementation, and lobbied for its adoption. That person, of course, was John Quigley. We all have John to thank for whatever recognition we have received as RSAI Fellows.
John received the RSAI Fellows Award in 2004, the third group of scholars to be so honored.
David Boyce
We were honored to have known John M. Quigley. He will be missed.
