Janet Rothenberg Pack, professor emerita of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School, where she served for more than 40 years, died in Philadelphia after a four-year battle with a mycobacterial infection of the lungs. She was 80.

Dr. Pack was a noted scholar in public economics, with a focus on urban and regional economics. She graduated from the City University of New York in 1959 with a degree in economics and received her master’s and PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963 and 1965, respectively. She taught in the department of city planning at Yale University from 1966 to 1970 and was also chief economist for the City of New Haven during that time. She also held appointments at Southern Connecticut State College and the New School for Social Research.

In 1970, she joined the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Public and Urban Policy (SPUP). When the public policy programs were moved to Wharton, she was one of the first faculty members of the newly created department of public and urban policy (now BEPP). She served as a professor there until her retirement in 2013, at which time she became professor emerita. She was chair of the department 1992-1997. She served on the search committee for a new dean of SPUP in 1982, on the Faculty Senate Committee on the Faculty and the Committee on Research for the University Council for several years, as well as the Strategic Planning Urban Community Committee.

Dr. Pack was the author of four books and 70 articles that concentrated on urban development and regional disparities in economic development. Dr. Pack held many visiting appointments, including serving as a senior fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution. While there, she was co-editor of the Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, an annual series of papers which integrated a broad range of research with urban implications.

Other visiting appointments included The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the US Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, the Institution of Urban and Regional Development at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Nairobi City Council. From 1985 to 1992 she was editor of the Journal of Public Policy and Management.

Dr. Pack is survived by her husband, Howard, a professor emeritus the department of business economics and public policy at Wharton; brother, Michael Rothenberg (Mona); and dozens of nieces and nephews. The department is currently working with her husband on how to best honor Dr. Pack’s memory and legacy.

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