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Lattee Fahm

Lattee Adisa Fahm (1930–1998), also known as Lattee Adees Fahm, was a Nigerian-born academic, Economist, writer and public policy practitioner who was the first black person to obtain a PhD in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT - 1963).

Lattee Fahm was born in Lagos, Nigeria on 2nd May 1930. In the early 1950s, he won a scholarship to study in the USA, and subsequently received a bachelor’s degree in Economics from UC Berkeley in 1957. After graduating, he was admitted to MIT, where he earned a PHD in Economics in 1963, becoming the first black person to do so. His dissertation, A Study in Economic-Functional Analysis of Government Spending, Nigeria: 1951-1960 was supervised by Paul Samuelson, (1970 Nobel Economics Prize winner).

Soon after graduation in 1963, Fahm took up position as Assistant Professor, and later Associate Professor at University of Connecticut, Storrs. He later taught at the University of Lagos, where he developed the first Nigerian Industrialized Production Index. He also worked with the United Nations as an Economist. He was the Executive Director of Economic Research Associates in Berkeley CA until his death in 1998.

Fahm wrote books and authored  chapters in joint books and articles in scholarly journals, and his better-known ideas are in the field of development economics. In The Waste of Nations, he used the term “social poleconecologist” in the context of explaining the processing and application of humanure for its agro-nutrient content. The term brings the interplay of ecology together with the dominant role of economics and politics in policy making. In the early 1960s, as many African countries became independent, Fahm argued that research can provide solutions for many of the pressing problems faced by these countries, noting that  only research aimed at problem solving and providing practical solutions should be given priority. Furthermore, in an article published in International Organization and African Economic Growth, Fahm provided recommendations on how the newly independent African countries can effectively use membership of international organizations to spur economic grow.

Professor Fahm died on 24th May 1998 in Oakland, California.