Death Announced of Jane Webb D’Arista, Economist and Poet Formerly of Lyme and Old Lyme
A lifelong engagement with poetry complemented D’Arista’s career in economic policy and academic research, culminating in a recent memoir.
Jane Webb D’Arista, a poet and an expert in international financial regulation and monetary flows, who lived in Hadlyme and on Old Mill Pond Lane in Old Lyme for decades, died early on July 4 in New London at the age of 94.
Jane was a graduate of Barnard College in New York. Returning from Italy, where her husband studied on a Fulbright, she served for two decades as a staff economist for the Banking and Commerce committees of the U.S. House of Representatives, as a principal analyst in the international division of the Congressional Budget Office and as an instructor of international finance from 1988-1999 at the Boston University School of Law.
She continued her work as an economist as a research associate at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and lectured there, at the University of Utah and at The New School. She was also involved with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. and devoted to her colleagues there.
Jane authored numerous books and publications focused on reforming the financial sector and on the history of U.S. monetary policy and financial regulation, including her notable two-volume 1994 work “The Evolution of U.S. Finance.” In the past decade, she published a comprehensive economic analysis, “All Fall Down: Debt, Deregulation and Financial Crises” (2019), tracing how changes in financial structure and regulation eroded monetary control and fueled historically high levels of debt, leading to the 2008 financial crisis.
Jane was also a gifted poet. She published a collection of her poems as “The Overgrown Copse & Other Poems” and co-authored a book of poetry with artist Sigrid Miller Pollin that explored the intersection of landscapes, nature, art and poetry. More recently, she authored a memoir of her experiences as an economist, poet and avid gardener in a work she titled “One Among Many: A Memoir.” She helped organize and often hosted a group of New England-based poets at monthly meetings to discuss poetry and share one another’s work and reveled in a broad community of friends and colleagues culled from her life in Old Lyme, Washington, D.C. and Massachusetts.
Jane was predeceased by her husband Robert D’Arista, who taught a generation of artists as a professor of painting at American University in Washington, D.C. and then at Boston University. She leaves her children Carla D’Arista of Old Lyme; her sons Peter and Thomas D’Arista, also part-time residents of Old Lyme; her daughter Toni D’Arista and her brother Hank Webb.
A memorial service is planned for early fall in Old Lyme.
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On behalf of our entire family, thank you to all who have reached out to us with your incredibly kind words and thoughts about my mother.
It has been deeply heartening to hear from so many who engaged and encouraged her not only in her professional career in Washington DC but while she continued to write and advocate for more progressive and rational economic policies in the second part of her life.
As many of you know, the last decades of her life were also dedicated to poetry and gardening. She would have been profoundly moved by your remembrance of her and the invocation of her legacy as an economist and poet.
Our family is coming together in the coming weeks to spread her ashes in her beautiful garden where she will rest in peace and freedom from the pain that eventually overcame an intellect that somehow seemed to sharpen with age. We are planning a celebration of her life in early October.
With great gratitude and appreciation from the D’Arista family.
I was fortunate to meet Jane while working for Lance Taylor at the New School. She was incredibly generous with younger economists and a profound source of wisdom. During my time at the University of Utah, she taught briefly, and she later visited the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, my alma mater, for a conference I co-organized. I am deeply saddened by her passing but grateful to have had the opportunity to know her.
Jane was my friend and co-author. She was a wonderful person, warm, super kind and charming. She was so knowledgeable and creative on economics and policy, it was a delight to work with her.
Most sincere condolences to her family and colleagues. I will miss her badly
I met Jane in 1992. She and Tom Schlesinger, Jamie Galbraith, Bob Pollin, Jerry Epstein, Marty Wolfson and I built a project at EPI under the sponsorship of Eileen Appelbaum, then EPI’s research director, focused on policies to create a fairer, more economically functional, and less crisis-prone financial system. Jane had the deepest insights into the machinations of finance and guided us forward with her inclusive and encouraging spirit. She coined the term ‘parallel banking system’ – years before it was designated as the ‘shadow banking system’; she understood – even as subprime mortgages and predatory financial instruments were in process of creation – that it would lead to the enrichment of the few and the impoverishment of the many. Every word she’s written about finance is worth careful study to this day. That she later not only turned to poetry herself but became a beacon for poets in her region only illustrates that her deepest motivations were love of people and love the ideals we try to live for. An amazing friend and a truly great American.
I’m very sorry to hear about Jane’s passing. I knew her from her economic work, which I always found incredibly valuable. Whenever I came on some intricacy of the financial system that I didn’t understand, I knew I could call Jane, and she would explain it to me. She was also one of the few women economists of her generation, and she had to overcome a lot to achieve what she did.
She was a remarkable person. I’m glad she was able to enjoy a long life.
Condolences to her family on the loss of this remarkable woman. I’m so sad, as a poet laureate of madison, an artist and gardener, but living here in Lyme, to only now learn about this talented poet and how I wished I had had an opportunity to meet or know her. As a member of the Italian American Writers Association, I would have loved to read her poems on a recent zoom meeting. I think i would very much still like to. Please, if I might offer this, please contact me-edwardlent@icloud.com I think through her poetry it would be a beautiful tribute of an amazing life. My deepest condolences.
With sorrow, my sincere condolences to Jane’s Family and Friends, especially, the CT River Poets.
Her thoughtfulness, great spirit and warm hospitality will be remembered.
I’m so sorry to read this. I met Jane once after a poetry reading and I felt as if I had known her forever. A visit to her house will always be a lovely and favorite memory
My condolences to her family