Sir Angus Deaton

Angus Stewart Deaton was born on October 19, 1945, in Edinburgh, Scotland.⁠[1][2]

His father grew up in a Yorkshire mining village and left school early, later studying at night school and qualifying as a civil engineer in 1955; his mother was the daughter of William Wood, who ran a small woodworking business in Galashiels.⁠[3]

He attended James Gillespie’s Boys School in Edinburgh, a local school in Newtown St Boswells and Hawick High School, and then won one of the two annual Foundation Scholarships to Fettes College, where he specialized in mathematics and physics.⁠[3]

Deaton entered Fitzwilliam College, University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a university in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. It gives 1209 as its founding date, is made up of Schools, Faculties, Departments and autonomous Colleges, and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry, as an Exhibitioner in Mathematics, later switched to economics and took his BA in 1967.⁠[4][3][2]

In 1967–1968 he worked in the Economic Intelligence Department of the Bank of England as part of its graduate intake.⁠[2][3]

Deaton returned to Cambridge as a research assistant to Jack Revell and then worked with Richard Stone; he became a Junior Research Officer in the Department of Applied Economics in 1969, a statistician for the London and Cambridge Economic Service in 1969–1970, and in 1972 Fellow and Director of Studies in Economics at Fitzwilliam College and Research Officer in the Department of Applied Economics.⁠[3][2]

He received an MA from Cambridge in 1971 and a PhD in 1974.⁠[2][1]

In 1975 Deaton was appointed Professor of Econometrics at the University of BristolUniversity of BristolThe University of Bristol is a research university in Bristol, England, United Kingdom. It began as University College, Bristol, which opened in 1876, became a university under a royal charter in 1909 and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry, holding the chair from 1976 to 1983.⁠[4][2]

In 1979–1980 he was a visiting professor at Princeton University.⁠[2]

In 1978 Deaton became the first recipient of the Econometric Society’s Frisch Medal, awarded for a paper he had presented early in his career at the London School of EconomicsLondon School of Economics and Political ScienceThe London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a specialist social science university in central London, founded in 1895 by members of the Fabian Society. It is known for research in economics, politics and social policy, and its alumni and staff include many Nobel laureates and national leaders.Open the full entry.⁠[2][3][5]

In 1980 Deaton and John Muellbauer published the paper “An Almost Ideal Demand System” and the book Economics and Consumer Behavior.⁠[5][2]

In 1983 Deaton joined Princeton University as Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School.⁠[5][2]

From 1984 to 1988 he was editor of the journal Econometrica.⁠[2]

Deaton published Understanding Consumption in 1992 and The Analysis of Household Surveys in 1997.⁠[2]

Deaton was Vice-President of the American Economic Association in 2004–2005 and its President in 2009.⁠[2]

In 2013 Princeton University Press published Deaton’s book The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality.⁠[2][5]

On October 12, 2015, the 2015 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Deaton of Princeton University “for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare.” He received the full prize alone.⁠[6][1]

He was notified by a telephone call at 6:10 a.m. that day.⁠[5]

In November 2015 Deaton and Anne Case published “Rising Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife Among White non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st Century” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showing that death rates among non-Hispanic white Americans aged 45–54 rose significantly between 1999 and 2013, driven mainly by suicide, drug and alcohol poisoning, and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.⁠[7]

On December 8, 2015, Deaton delivered his prize lecture, “Measuring and Understanding Behavior, Welfare, and Poverty,” at the Aula Magna, Stockholm University.⁠[8]

In 2016 Deaton was named a Knight Bachelor in Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday honours list “for his services to research in economics and international affairs.”⁠[9][2]

In June 2016 he became Emeritus Professor and a Senior Scholar at Princeton University.⁠[3][4]

As of June 2018 Deaton also held appointments as Presidential Professor of Economics at the University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California (USC) is a private research university in Los Angeles, California, planned by a group led by Judge Robert Maclay Widney and opened to students in 1880.Open the full entry, Senior Scientist at Gallup and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.⁠[2]

On March 17, 2020, Princeton University Press published Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case and Deaton. The book examines rising deaths from suicide, drug overdose and alcohol-related illness in the United States, especially among working-class Americans without college degrees, and proposes policies to curb the excesses of capitalism.⁠[10]

The book became a New York Times best-seller.⁠[4]

On October 3, 2023, Princeton University Press published Deaton’s Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality, in which he draws on his experience as a British immigrant to the United States to discuss how economics addresses issues such as poverty, health care and retirement, and offers a critique of his own profession.⁠[11]

As of November 2026 Deaton is a Senior Scholar at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.⁠[12]

Around 1980 Deaton developed the Almost Ideal Demand System, a way of estimating how the demand for each good depends on the prices of all goods and on individual incomes, which has become a standard tool in research and policy evaluation.⁠[6]

Around 1990 he showed that the prevailing theory of consumption could not explain actual patterns when it started from aggregate data, and that modelling how individuals adjust consumption to their own more volatile incomes resolved the problem.⁠[6]

In more recent work he used reliable household consumption data to study the mechanisms of development, including the relationship between income and calorie intake and gender discrimination within families, and identified pitfalls in comparing poverty across time and place; his work helped transform development economics from a theoretical field based on aggregate data into an empirical field based on detailed individual data.⁠[6]

He has also studied the determinants of health in rich and poor countries, the measurement of poverty in India and worldwide, and the relationship between income and happiness; with Daniel KahnemanDaniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman (1934–2024) was an Israeli-American psychologist who, with Amos Tversky, pioneered research on cognitive biases in judgment and decision-making and developed prospect theory; he received the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and wrote the bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow.Open the full entry he found that in the United States hedonic affect improves with income, but only up to about $75,000 a year.⁠[5][3]

Deaton’s early books include The British Economy: Key Statistics 1900–70 (1971, with the London and Cambridge Economic Service), Models and Projections of Demand in Post-War Britain (1975) and The Structure of Demand in Europe 1920–70 (1975); he also co-edited The Great Indian Poverty Debate (2005) with Valerie Kozel.⁠[2]

He has published almost 200 papers in professional journals.⁠[4]

Deaton received Cambridge’s Stevenson Prize in 1971, became a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1979, received the Medal of the University of Helsinki in 1981, was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992 and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 2001, and was President of Section F of the British Association in 2001–2002.⁠[2]

He gave Cambridge’s Stone Lecture in 2010, the year he became a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association; he gave the Hicks Lecture at Oxford in 2011, received the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in 2012, and in 2014 became a member of the American Philosophical Society, gave the Lionel Robbins Lecture and received the Leontief Prize.⁠[2]

He was elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2015, received the Cozzarelli Prize and the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Royal Medal and Honorary Fellowship in 2016, and received the Franklin Founder Award in 2017.⁠[2]

His honorary degrees include an Honorary D.Sc (Econ) from University College LondonUniversity College LondonUniversity College London (UCL) is a university in London, England, United Kingdom. Founded in 1826, it is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry and a Laurea Honoris Causa from the University of Rome Tor Vergata (2007), an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of St Andrews (2008), an Honorary Doctor of Science in Social Science from the University of EdinburghUniversity of EdinburghThe University of Edinburgh is a research university in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the Town Council in 1583, it is one of Scotland’s four ancient universities and a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry (2011), an Honorary Doctor of Economics from the University of Cyprus (2012) and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Brown UniversityBrown UniversityBrown University is a private nonprofit research university in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by Rhode Island's colonial legislature in 1764, it is known for its undergraduate Open Curriculum, which has no common required core. Christina H. Paxson, president since July 2012, announced on August 3, 2026, that the 2026–27 academic year would be her last in office. As of October 1, 2026, the search for Brown's 20th president remained underway.Open the full entry (2016).⁠[2]

Before leaving the Bank of England Deaton married Mary Ann Burnside, with whom he had a daughter, Rebecca, and a son, Adam; Mary Ann died of breast cancer in 1975. His second wife was Helge. In 1997 he married the economist Anne Case, whom he had met at Princeton.⁠[3][1]

The University of Bristol lists Deaton on its “Nobel PrizesNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prize is an international award established under the will of Alfred Nobel, comprising five prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace, awarded since 1901; its funds are managed by the Nobel Foundation, whose Board is based in Stockholm. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, established in 1968, is not a Nobel Prize.Open the full entry and Fellowships” page among the Nobel laureates connected with the university, as its former Professor of Econometrics. In 2016 the university awarded him an Honorary Fellowship.⁠[13][2]

Personal website: https://deaton.scholar.princeton.edu/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12]