Obituary

Timothy Josling
1940-2018

Timothy Josling, a Stanford professor emeritus of agricultural economics, died at his home in Davis, California, on Nov. 27 after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 78.

Josling, professor emeritus at the former Food Research Institute, was a prolific scholar in agricultural economics. He was known for his humor, patience and devotion to his work and family, according to his relatives and colleagues.

“My dad was one of those people who had an answer to every question,” said his daughter, Catherine Josling. “I loved asking him questions because I knew whether he knew the answer or not, he would confidently answer the question. He also had a wonderful sense of humor – you could always count on him for a witty retort.”

From 1993 to 1996, Josling served as the director for the Center for European Studies at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). When the Food Research Institute closed in 1996, he went on to co-convene the European Forum, now The Europe Center, until he retired in 2003.

Throughout retirement, Josling remained active on campus as a senior fellow, by courtesy, at FSI. Until 2016, he taught a course on the economics of the WTO for the Program in International Relations and would regularly meet with his students at the Europe Center’s offices, said program administrator Karen Haley.

Josling’s recent publications include the three-volume Handbook on International Food and Agricultural Policies, which was published in 2018. In 2015, he co-authored Transatlantic Food and Agricultural Trade Policy: 50 Years of Conflict and Convergence with his long-time collaborator, Stefan Tangermann of the University of Göttingen in Germany.

“One could discuss the most crazy ideas with him and develop them jointly into workable hypotheses and proposals,” said Tangermann, who first met Josling in 1973. Over the next 40 years, the pair developed a close professional partnership and wrote more than 50 publications together, including two major books.

“From the 1980s on, Josling and Tangermann were considered the profession’s leaders in explaining European agricultural policy and in discussing its implications for policymakers,” said Pearson.

Josling was a member of the International Policy Council on Food and Agricultural Trade and former chair of the executive committee of the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium. He also held a visiting professorship at the University of Kent, in the United Kingdom, and was a past president of the UK Agricultural Economics Association. In 2004, he was made a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association.

Despite his accomplishments, Josling was “very self-effacing,” said his colleague and friend Christophe Crombez, a senior research scholar at the Europe Center. “Tim was not someone who sought the spotlight.”