Jane D’Arista, 1932–2026

 

From the right, at the top and only the back of the head, José Antonio Ocampo, then Robert Blecker, and then Jane. I'm next to her to the left. In 2000, I think

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Jane D’Arista, economist, poet, and one of the most insightful analysts of money, finance, and financial regulation of her generation. Jane died on July 4 at the age of 94.  I had been in contact with her last year about her lovely memoir. Her long career included work as a staff economist for the US House Banking and Commerce Committees, as a principal analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, and later as a teacher and researcher at Boston University, PERI, the University of Utah, and The New School. She authored important work on the evolution of U.S. finance, monetary policy, regulation, and financial crises, including The Evolution of U.S. Finance and All Fall Down.

Her memoir tells the remarkable story of how she became an economic analyst almost by accident. Hired initially to organize the papers of Congressman Wright Patman, she entered the world of banking policy through archives, hearings, investigations, and congressional staff work. From Patman’s populist battles against concentrated financial power, to her work on the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Federal Reserve, foreign bank regulation, offshore banking, and the CBO, Jane learned economics from the inside of institutions. That practical knowledge gave her work unusual depth. She understood finance not as an abstract market mechanism, but as a political and institutional structure shaped by law, power, public purpose, and regulation. She famously anticipated the concept of shadow banking in the early 1990s, referring to it as the parallel banking system.

 

Jane between me and Robert Blecker at an event at American University honoring her late husband in 2018

I was fortunate to meet Jane while working for Lance Taylor at The New School. She was incredibly generous with younger economists and a profound source of wisdom. During my time at the University of Utah, she taught briefly, and she later visited the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, my alma mater, for a conference I co-organized. I am deeply saddened by her passing, but grateful to have had the opportunity to know her.

Jane belonged to a tradition of economists who took institutions seriously, understood the dangers of unregulated finance, and believed that public policy could and should discipline financial power. She will be missed, but her work remains essential reading.