Myles Wallace, 1946-2016

March 29, 2016

Professor Emeritus Myles Wallace passed away on Tuesday March 22. Born in West Virginia, with BA, MA, and PhD degrees from the University of Colorado followed by service in the U.S. Air Force, Myles was a Clemson man for most of his career. He will long be remembered for his his love of economics, his research collaborations with colleagues, and his generosity to students.

Myles was a central figure in the economics department for three decades. He was a specialist in macroeconomics, international finance, and time series analysis. His teaching was outstanding. His courses were difficult, but with a purpose. One undergraduate student who subsequently worked in the Derivatives Department at Chase Securities wrote “Unlike many other classes an A in one of Dr. Wallace’s classes still carries with it the weight of what achieving an A once meant: a thorough and comprehensive understanding of the subject matter… Dr. Wallace challenges, even dares his students to think.”

Myles was known as “our macro guy.” But his scholarly work was much broader. Papers written by Myles appeared the Journal of Industrial Economics, Public Choice, and many general interest journals, complementing his macro-oriented work in the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking and the Review of Economics and Statistics. No other faculty member has written as many papers with his colleagues. His list of Clemson co-authors include the following names: Barnhart, Blair, Cottle, Kelly, Nardinelli, Placone, Shannon, Ulbrich, Warner, and Yandle among the faculty; Anderson, Choudhry, Mitchell, Watson, and Yu among our students. Myles walked the corridors of Sirrine Hall carrying ideas with him, and these collaborations are the traces.

In addition, Myles was the department’s best ever international ambassador. Myles loved traveling, and was in frequent demand from universities in other countries to visit and teach. His travels included extended visits to teach at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Toulouse, France, and Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. He did not come back from these trips empty handed. Invariably he would return with news that he had found a bright student who had suddenly developed an interest in Clemson’s Economics PhD program. Today there are economists teaching at universities in the U.S., China, England, Turkey and elsewhere who were inspired by Myles and earned their PhD’s at Clemson.

Myles lived a full life; skiing, good food and wine come immediately to mind. He gave generously with his wife Susan to establish the Myles S. Wallace Fellowship In Economics, which supports students pursuing graduate studies at Clemson. Please consider contributing to this fellowship along with the Wallace’s and others, using either this link, or by writing to the Clemson University Foundation, P.O. Box 1889, Clemson, SC 29633. An obituary with details on Myles life, and where you can sign a guestbook is available here. A memorial service will be held at 2pm Sunday April 10 at the Duckett-Robinson Funeral Home in Central, SC.