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Passing of Professor Emeritus Svetozar “Steve” Pejovich

The Department of Economics is sad to announce the passing of our former colleague and Professor Emeritus Svetozar “Steve” Pejovich on Friday, February 12, 2021. Dr. Pejovich taught at Texas A&M for over 20 years and he was very popular among his students.  His courses on comparative economic systems and on law and economics challenged […]

The Department of Economics is sad to announce the passing of our former colleague and Professor Emeritus Svetozar “Steve” Pejovich on Friday, February 12, 2021. Dr. Pejovich taught at Texas A&M for over 20 years and he was very popular among his students.  His courses on comparative economic systems and on law and economics challenged students to think deeply and for many students, the courses were “life-lessons”. In 1987, Steve received a coveted Association of Former Students University-Level Distinguished Achievement in Teaching Award honoring his excellence in the classroom. He was the author of many influential articles and books, including Fundamentals of Economics: A Property Rights Approach and Life in the Soviet Union: A Report Card on Socialism. He contributed important research in areas including political economy and property rights. His paper, joint with Erik Furbotn, on “Property Rights and economic theory:  a survey of recent literature”, published in the Journal of Economic Literature in 1972, is a seminal paper on the economics of property rights, with over 2000 citations. In 2013, former Pejovich student Dr. Shelia Amin Gutierrez de Pineres ’88 and Alexandra Pejovich Chilton established the Professor Svetozar Pejovich Scholarship for Texas A&M undergraduate ECON students. The Scholarship is a fitting tribute to Professor Pejovich’s lifetime devotion to teaching students about economics and principles of liberty and serves as a legacy connection between Steve Pejovich and the TAMU undergraduate economics students he so cherished.