My friend and former tutor Professor Keith Cowling, who has died aged 79, was one of Europe’s leading industrial economists and an adviser to the Labour party leader, John Smith. Keith was part of an informal thinktank set up by Smith on which he worked closely with an ambitious young politician called Gordon Brown.
Born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, Keith was the son of George Cowling, a train driver, and his wife, Nellie (nee Raby), an embroiderer. He went to the local grammar school and showed great prowess at football – he was a triallist with Scunthorpe United FC – before studying agricultural sciences at Wye college in Kent, a branch of the University of London. It was there that his interests moved away from agricultural science towards economics.
After completing a doctorate in agricultural economics at the University of Illinois in Chicago, Keith began his academic career in 1961 at the University of Manchester. He quickly progressed, and was promoted to senior lecturer only four years later. It was at Manchester that Keith met his future wife, Barbara Lees, who was working there as a research assistant. In nearby Stockport he became a Labour councillor in a hitherto Conservative ward: by all accounts he was very persuasive on the doorstep.
In 1966, Keith went to work at the new University of Warwick in Coventry, switching his research interests towards the developing field of industrial economics. In 1970 he was appointed to the Clarkson chair in industrial economics at 33. As head of department from 1975 to 1978 he was instrumental in persuading the university to invest in new professorships.
His own research career was also flourishing to the extent that he became an early president (1987-89) of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics. In the early 1980s he had foreseen that more and more transnational corporations would relocate production offshore, leading to de-industrialisation and undermining local development. Keith was always keen to look at alternative possibilities for industrial development. He co-founded the European Union Network for Industrial Policy in the mid-90s, exploring the potential of more co-operative modes of production.
As a person, he was charismatic and forceful. As an academic, he was always engaging and open to new ideas. Despite retiring in 2003, Keith continued to conduct research, recently co-editing a book investigating new possibilities for British industrial policy.
He is survived by Barbara, his son, Marc, and his daughters, Lee and Lucy.
