In Memoriam

John Bryant, Rice University Professor Emeritus, passed away on April 2, 2020.

Bryant came to Rice in 1981 as the Henry S. Fox Associate Professor of Economics and Professor of Management, and was promoted to full professor four years later. Throughout his 35-year career at Rice, he developed complex and path-breaking theories on macroeconomics, monetary policy, game theory, and the fragility of financial markets. Bryant published articles in all five of profession’s most prestigious journals: the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Studies.

Bryant also served as director of graduate studies in economics and on the Rice admissions committee for several years. He was acting chair of the Economics Department in spring 1988 and served as director of graduate studies for several years.

Before coming to Rice, Bryant worked as an economist and inventories expert at the U.S. Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., and as a senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He earned his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in 1975. In 2022, the Economics Nobel Prize’s Scientific Background cited John Bryant’s seminal work and discussed how it shared key features with Diamond and Dybvig’s research. More information on Bryant’s history and accomplishments can be found on his personal website.