Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. is President Emeritus and Professor of Economics Emeritus at Carleton College. He served as president from 1987 to 2002. He began senior administrative experience at Williams College, where he twice served as Provost of the College (1968-71 and 1973-77). In January 2007 he was elected Chairman of the Boards of RiverSource Funds, the Minneapolis-based mutual fund group.

An economist with a specialty in developing economies, Lewis received his BA, Phi Beta Kappa from Williams in 1960, and his PhD in Economics from Stanford in 1963. He taught Economics at Stanford (1962-63), Harvard (1965-66), the University of Nairobi (1971-72) and Williams (1966-87), where he held the Herbert H. Lehman Professorship.

As Research Advisor to the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics in Karachi (1963-65), Lewis headed a research section on fiscal policy; his work resulted in two books, including Pakistan: Industrialization and Trade Policy (1970). He also lived in Nairobi (1971-73) where he served as an Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development of the Government of Kenya.

In 1975, Lewis began a long association with Botswana, serving as Economic Consultant to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning on a resident basis in 1977-78 and 1980-82, on short term assignments each year from 1975 to 1988, and occasionally since then. With Charles Harvey he coauthored Policy Choice and Development Performance in Botswana (1990). Lewis edited Q.K.J. Masire’s Very Brave or Very Foolish? Memoirs of an African Democrat (Macmillan, 2006). Masire was a founder (in 1962) of the Botswana Democratic Party, and he served as Botswana’s Vice President and Minister of Finance from Independence in 1966 until 1980, and as its second President (1980 to 1998). Lewis was awarded the Presidential Order of Meritorious Service by the Botswana Government in 1983.

As a result of his work in Southern Africa, Lewis was asked by the Council on Foreign Relations to analyze the South African economy, which resulted in his 1990 book The Economics of Apartheid. His work on fiscal issues in developing countries resulted in several articles and a textbook, Taxation for Development (1984).

Lewis is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and William Mitchell College of Law. In 2002 he joined the Boards of Directors of RiverSource Funds and Valmont Industries, Inc. He is a consultant to The Presidential Practice, which provides counsel to newly elected college presidents. He has received honorary degrees from Williams, Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, Macalester College, Lingnan University in Hong Kong, and Carleton.

In 1996 Lewis married the former Judith Frost Flinn. They each have three grown children and several grandchildren.