Gregory Clark (economist)

Gregory Clark (born 19 September 1957) is a British economic historian who worked mostly at University of California, Davis and is now the Danish National Research Council professor of economics at the University of Southern Denmark. He is known for his economic research on the industrial revolution and social mobility.

Biography
Clark, whose grandfathers were migrants to Scotland from Ireland, was born in Bellshill, Scotland. He attended Holy Cross High School in Hamilton. In 1974 he and fellow pupil Paul Fitzpatrick won the Scottish Daily Express schools debating competition. He earned a BA degree in economics and philosophy at King's College, Cambridge in 1979 and a PhD in economics at Harvard University in 1985. His thesis was supervised by Barry Eichengreen, Jeffrey G. Williamson, and Stephen Marglin. He became an assistant professor at Stanford University from 1985 to 1989 and at the University of Michigan from 1989 to 1990. He moved to the University of California, Davis and became associate professor in 1990 and professor of economics in 1996. He was formerly (until 2013) chair of the economics department at the University of California, Davis and became a distinguished professor emeritus there since 2018. Between 2017 and 2020, Clark was a visiting professor in economic history at the London School of Economics. In 2023, he became the Danish National Research Council professor of economics at the University of Southern Denmark.

Clark's areas of research are long term economic growth, the wealth of nations, the economic history of The Industrial Revolution, England and India, and social mobility. He is also a Visiting Professor in the Economic History Department at London School of Economics and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis.

In 2021, a talk by Clark, titled "For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls: A Lineage of 400,000 Individuals 1750-2020 Shows Genetics Determines Most Social Outcomes", was cancelled due to accusations of promoting eugenics.

Books

 * A Farewell to Alms (2007), a Malthusian look at economic history
 * The Son Also Rises (2014), on social mobility.