Robert Fogel died two days ago. Obits are available here and here. Fogel won the Nobel for Economics in 1993, along with Douglas North, for his contribution to cliometrics i.e., the application of economic theory and methods to economic history. In Greek mythology, Clio is the muse of history.
Fogel was most famous for his controversial work Time on the Cross, which he co-authored with Stanley Engerman. In this book, Fogel and Engerman gathered copious amounts of data on a Southern slavery plantation and found that (a) slaves were better treated by slave owners than had previously been assumed; (b) slaves in the American south lived better than many industrial workers in the north; and (c) slavery was a profitable institution and would not have disappeared without the Civil War.
