Mira Wilkins (born 1 June 1931) is an American economic and business historian and a world authority on the history of American business and foreign direct investment. She is Professor Emerita at the Department of Economics,

Florida International University Florida International University (FIU) is a public research university with its main campus in Westchester, Florida, United States. Founded in 1965 by the Florida Legislature, the school opened to students in 1972. FIU is the third-largest univ ...

. Wilkins received an A.B. from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

and a PhD from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 1957. She has been a pioneer in the field of business history, especially in the field of

foreign direct investment A foreign direct investment (FDI) is an ownership stake in a company, made by a foreign investor, company, or government from another country. More specifically, it describes a controlling ownership an asset in one country by an entity based i ...

, foreign portfolio investment and multinational enterprises on which she published two books ''The History of Foreign Investment in the United States to 1914'' and its sequel ''The History of Foreign Investment in the United States, 1914-1945''. She has been called the "''doyen'' of historians of international business," and has published numerous major studies in this field. Her most recent book is a study of the role of multinationals in global electrification authored together with Peter Hertner and William Hausmann and titled ''Global Electrification: Multinational Enterprise and International Finance in the History of Light and Power, 1878–2007''. She is a past president of the Business History Conference, which awarded her its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkins, Mira 1931 births Living people American women economists 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American historians Alumni of the University of Cambridge Radcliffe College alumni Florida International University faculty American women historians 21st-century American women