Duncan Black,FBA (23 May 1908 – 14 January 1991) was aScottisheconomist who laid the foundations ofsocial choice theory. In particular he was responsible for unearthing the work of many earlypolitical scientists, includingCharles Lutwidge Dodgson, and was responsible for theBlack electoral system, aCondorcet method whereby, in the absence of a Condorcet winner (e.g. due to a cycle), theBorda winner is chosen.^[1]

Black was born inMotherwell,Scotland, an industrial town south east of Glasgow, to a working-class family.^[2] He graduated from theDalziel High School in Motherwell and then studied mathematics and physics at theUniversity of Glasgow. He then enrolled for a degree in economics and politics which he finished with first class honours in 1932. He started teaching at the newly formed Dundee School of Economics (later part of theUniversity of Dundee). There Black was influenced by his colleagueRonald Coase, originator of theTheory of the Firm. He later taught at the University College of North Wales (nowBangor University) and Glasgow.

Black also had visiting positions in theUnited States, at the universities ofRochester,Chicago,Virginia andMichigan State. These occurred afterWilliam H. Riker reviewed his work in 1961.^[3][4] He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980.^[5]

The archives for Duncan Black are maintained by theArchives of the University of Glasgow (GUAS).

• Median voter theorem
• Public choice theory

• Black, Duncan (1948). "On the Rationale of Group Decision-making".Journal of Political Economy.56:23–34.doi:10.1086/256633.S2CID 153953456.
• Black, Duncan (1958).The Theory of Committees and Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bernard Grofman (1987 [2008]), "Black, Duncan,"TheNew Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 1, pp. 250–51.

• 1908 births
• 1991 deaths
• Scottish economists
• Alumni of the University of Glasgow
• Fellows of the Econometric Society
• Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Voting theorists
• 20th-century British economists
• Fellows of the British Academy
• Public choice theorists

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• Use British English from March 2012
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