UMass Boston Mourns Professor Jeremiah Cotton

Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Winston Langley announced Wednesday that Associate Professor of Economics Jeremiah Cotton passed away February 1. 

"Professor Cotton’s life was devoted to understanding and eradicating inequality and discrimination. Although he focused much of his scholarly work on racial wage inequality, he was also keenly aware of, and was both personally and professionally disturbed by, all forms of injustice toward women, gay men and lesbians, and poor people. He was widely admired for his dedication to the fight for social justice and for his professionalism. His departmental colleagues recall him as an excellent teacher who was incredibly devoted to his students," Langley said.

Langley said one of Cotton's most important contributions to the study of labor economics and discrimination was his critique and reformulation of the way economists estimate how much of wage differences between black and white workers is due to differences in human capital, versus how much is due to discrimination. His 1988 article “On the Decomposition of Wage Differentials” was published in the highly prestigious Review of Economics and Statistics and continues to be cited in articles examining wage differentials.

Cotton was a member of the board of directors for Social Science Quarterly and served on the advisory board for the Race and Ethnicity Institute at Texas A&M University.

Professor Cotton had requested that there not be a public funeral for him. His family requests that those who wish to acknowledge his passing in some tangible way make a donation to the social justice organization of their choice.