| | 61 | Name: | Dr. Paul A. Samuelson | | | Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | | Year Elected: | 1958 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1915 | | | Death Date: | December 13, 2009 | | | | | | |
Perhaps more than anyone else, Paul A. Samuelson has personified mainstream economics in the second half of the twentieth century. Author of the premier principles textbook, he is presently Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1940. Dr. Samuelson's most famous piece of work, Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947), helped revive Neoclassical economics and launched the era of the mathematization of economics. He was also one of the progenitors of the Paretian revival in microeconomics and the Neo-Keynesian Synthesis in macroeconomics during the post-war period. A graduate of Harvard University (Ph.D., 1941), where he studied under Schumpeter and Leontief, Dr. Samuelson early on demonstrated a prodigious grasp of economic theory. After moving to M.I.T., he built one of the century's most powerful economics departments while espousing two rules which can be said to characterize much of Neoclassical economics since: with every economic problem (1) reduce the number of variables and keep only a minumum set of simple economic relations; and (2) if possible, rewrite it as a constrained optimization problem. In microeconomics, Dr. Samuelson is responsible for the theory of revealed preference. He also introduced the use of comparative statics and dynamics through his "correspondence principle" which was applied fruitfully in his contributions to the dynamic stability of general equilibrium. He also developed what are now called "Bergson-Samuelson social welfare functions" and he is responsible for the harnessing of "public goods" into Neoclassical theory. Dr. Samuelson was also instrumental in establishing the modern theory of production. His Foundations are responsible for the envelope theorem and the full characterization of the cost function. He also made important contributions to the theory of technical progress. His work on the theory of capital is also well known, if contentious. He demonstrated one of the first remarkable "Non-Substitution" theorems and, in his famous paper with Solow, initiated the analysis of dynamic Leontief systems. This work was famously reiterated in his famous 1958 volume on linear programming with Dorfman and Solow, wherein we also find a clear introduction to the "turnpike" conjecture of linear von Neumann systems. In international trade theory, he is responsible for the Stolper-Samuelson Theorem and, independently of Lerner, the Factor Price Equalization theorem as well as resolving the age-old "transfer problem" relating terms of trade and capital flows as well as the Marxian transformation problem and other issues in Classical economics. In macroeconomics, Dr. Samuelson's multiplier-accelerator macrodynamic model is justly famous, as is his presentation of the Phillips Curve. He is also famous for popularizing Allais's "overlapping generations" model which has since found many applications in macroeconomics and monetary theory. In many ways, his work on speculative prices effectively anticipates the efficient markets hypothesis in finance theory. His work on diversification and the "lifetime portfolio" (1969) is also well known. Paul Samuelson's many contributions to Neoclassical economic theory were recognized with a Nobel Memorial prize in 1970. | |
| 62 | Name: | Dr. Herbert Eli Scarf | | | Institution: | Yale University | | | Year Elected: | 1993 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1930 | | | Death Date: | November 15, 2015 | | | | | | |
Herbert E. Scarf was the Sterling Professor of Economics Emeritus at Yale University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1963. Scarf’s most enduring legacy was an algorithm - named for him - that enables economists to evaluate how markets, companies and even households would respond to fundamental changes in tax policy or trade strategies. He received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Princeton University in 1954 and was employed at the RAND Corporation from 1954-56. In 1956 he was asked by Professors Kenneth J. Arrow and Samuel Karlin to join them at Stanford University to collaborate in the development of inventory theory. Dr. Scarf remained at Stanford until 1963, continuing to work on inventory theory and extending his interests to more general problems in mathematical economics. Over the years, he had been concerned with a variety of different applications of mathematics to economic theory, studying optimal policies for dynamic inventory problems, the stability of the classical model of economic equilibrium, the development of numerical algorithms for computing equilibrium prices and the relations between economic equilibria and cooperative n-person game theory. For a number of years, he concentrated on the detailed analysis of production in which indivisibilities (e.g., large, discrete choices) play an important role. His underlying motivation had been to incorporate into equilibrium analysis a treatment of large firms, whose size derives from the presence of economics of scale in production. Dr. Scarf was a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and has served as Director of the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale University; as Director of the Division of Social Sciences at Yale; and as the President of the Econometric Society. The recipient of an Honorary Degree from the University of Chicago, he won the Lanchester Prize and the von Neumann Medal of the Operations Research Society of America and was a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. Herbert Scarf died November 15, 2015, at the age of 85, at his home in Sag Harbor, New York. | |
| 63 | Name: | Dr. Theodore W. Schultz | | | Institution: | University of Chicago | | | Year Elected: | 1962 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1902 | | | Death Date: | 2/26/98 | | | | |
| 64 | Name: | Dr. Robert R. Sears | | | Institution: | Stanford University | | | Year Elected: | 1962 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1908 | | | Death Date: | 5/22/89 | | | | |
| 65 | Name: | Dr. Amartya Kumar Sen | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1997 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1933 | | | | | | |
Amartya Sen is Lamont University Professor at Harvard University and was until recently the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1998 he received the Nobel Prize in Economics for his "contributions to welfare economics." Educated at Presidency College in Calcutta and at Trinity College, Dr. Sen served as Professor of Economics at Delhi University and at the London School of Economics as well as Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University. He is past president of the Econometric Society, the Indian Economic Association, the American Economic Association and the International Economic Association. He is also a former president of OXFAM and continues to serve as its Honorary Advisory. Professor Sen's work ranges over a number of fields in economics, philosophy, and decision theory, including social choice theory, welfare economics, theory of measurement, development economics, moral and political philosophy, and the economics of peace and war. Amartya Sen's books include Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970), On Economic Inequality (1973, 1997), Poverty and Famines (1981), Choice, Welfare and Measurement (1982), Resources, Values and Development (1984), On Ethics and Economics (1987), The Standard of Living (1987) Inequality Reexamined (1992), and Development as Freedom (1999). Rationality and Freedom (2004) was followed by a companion volume, Freedom and Justice. In 2009, he published The Idea of Justice, in 2013 An Uncertain Glory, and in 2016 The Country of the First Boys. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Professor Sen's work has been recognized with the "Bharat Ratna" (the highest honor awarded by the President of India), the Edinburgh Medal, the Eisenhower Medal, the National Humanities Medal (2011), the inaugural John Maynard Keynes Prize (2015), and the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science (2017). Amartya Sen was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1997. | |
| 66 | Name: | Dr. Robert J. Shiller | | | Institution: | Yale University | | | Year Elected: | 2003 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1946 | | | | | | |
Robert J. Shiller is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics, Department of Economics and Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, and Professor of Finance at the International Center for Finance, Yale School of Management. He received his B. A. from the University of Michigan in 1967 and his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. He has written on financial markets, financial innovation, behavioral economics, macroeconomics, real estate, statistical methods, and on public attitudes, opinions, and moral judgments regarding markets. His 1989 book Market Volatility (MIT Press) is a mathematical and behavioral analysis of price fluctuations in speculative markets. His 1993 book Macro Markets: Creating Institutions for Managing Society's Largest Economic Risks proposes a variety of new risk-management contracts, such as futures contracts in national incomes or in real estate that would permit the management of risks to standards of living. His book Irrational Exuberance (2000) is an analysis and explication of speculative bubbles, with special reference to the stock market and real estate. His book The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century (2003) is an analysis of an expanding role of finance, insurance, and public finance in our future. He was vice president of the American Economic Association (2005) and a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research. He writes a column "Finance in the 21st Century" for Project Syndicate, which publishes around the world. He is co-founder of Case Shiller Weiss, Inc., an economics research and information firm, which was sold in 2002 and renamed Fiserv CSW, Inc. He is also co-founder and principal of MacroMarkets, LLC, a firm devoted to the securitization of new risks, and of Macro Financial, LLC, a boutique investment bank. His book Subprime Solution: How Today's Financial Crisis Happened and What to Do About It (2008) outlines important new economic measures. He recently wrote (with George A. Akerlof) Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism (2009) and Finance and the Good Society (2012). In 2013 he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science with Eugene Fama. | |
| 67 | Name: | Dr. Christopher A. Sims | | | Institution: | Princeton University | | | Year Elected: | 2012 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1942 | | | | | | |
Christopher A. Sims is the Harold H. Helm '20 Professor of Economics and Banking at Princeton University. Born in Washington, DC he earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1968. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2011. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1988), National Academy of Sciences (1989), and American Economic Association (president, 2011- ).
There are relatively few cases in which it can be said that a single person revolutionized an entire mode of intellectual inquiry, but that is the case with Christopher Sims and time series econometrics. His 1972 result that postwar data confirmed the existence of a unilateral causal relationship from money supply to GDP strongly influenced subsequent research on monetary policy. Subsequently, he single-handedly invented the Vector Autoregression (VAR) technique, and he has been a leader in many of the subsequent refinements and extensions of VAR methodology as well. Before Sims’ seminal work, there was a seemingly-unending battle over which variables were "exogenous" and which were "endogenous." For example, how can the government’s fiscal and monetary policy decisions be considered exogenous, when they likely respond to macroeconomic events? The VAR technique virtually ended that debate by treating all variables symmetrically (for example, tax cuts influence GDP, but GDP also influences tax cuts), and looking to learn about the macroeconomy via timing relationships. VARs are now ubiquitous in macroeconomics, which was and remains Sims’ main field of interest; indeed, virtually every empirical paper in macroeconomics begins (and many end) with VARs. But VARs are also used outside the realm of macroeconomics - almost anywhere time series data is analyzed. They have become the standard way to ferret out the "stylized facts." There is an old saying "let the data speak"; VARs have become the language through which time series data speaks. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2012. | |
| 68 | Name: | Dr. Robert M. Solow | | | Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | | Year Elected: | 1980 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1924 | | | Death Date: | December 21, 2023 | | | | | | |
Robert Solow is one of the major figures of the Neo-Keynesian Synthesis macroeconomics. Together with Paul Samuelson, he formed the core of the M.I.T. economics department which has been widely viewed as the "mainstream" of the post-war period. Together, Solow and Samuelson have contributed to various landmark pieces of work: e.g. on von Neumann growth theory (1953), on capital theory (1956), on linear programming (1958) and on the Phillips Curve (1960). Individually, Robert Solow is best known for his work on the Neoclassical growth model (1956, 1970). He was also one of the co-inventors of the constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function (1961) and is responsible for exploring and popularizing the "long-run multiplier" derived from a dynamic government budget constraint (1973). It was Dr. Solow's work on growth that earned him a Nobel Memorial prize in 1987, and he has also been awarded the John Bates Clark Medal (1961) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2014) for his efforts. Robert Solow holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University (1951); since 1949 he has served on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is presently Institute Professor Emeritus. | |
| 69 | Name: | Dr. Hugo Freund Sonnenschein | | | Institution: | University of Chicago | | | Year Elected: | 2001 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1940 | | | Death Date: | July 15, 2021 | | | | | | |
Hugo Sonnenschein was the Adam Smith Distinguished Service Professor and President Emeritus of the University of Chicago. He served as president of the university from 1993-2000. Previously he was provost of Princeton University (1991-93) and dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (1988-91). Professor Sonnenschein's research has focused on theories of consumer and firm behavior, general economic equilibrium, game theory and social choice. In the early 1970s he published work that largely determined the general structure of aggregate demand functions. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in game theory and price theory. Dr. Sonnenschein is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (elected 1990), a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (elected 1984) and a member of the American Philosophical Society (elected 2001). He served as President of the Econometric Society in 1988 and was the editor of its journal, Econometrica, from 1977 to 1984. He is former chairman of the Board of Governors of Argonne National Laboratory, an honorary member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees at the University of Rochester. His other current board responsibilities include the Board of Directors of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (Berkeley), the Board of Directors of the Institute for the International Education of Students, the Board of Directors of Van Kampen Mutual Funds, and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Barcelona Graduate School. Dr. Sonnenschein received his Bachelor's Degree in mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1961 and his Ph.D. in economics from Purdue University in 1964. He is the recipient of honorary doctoral degrees from numerous universities, including Tel Aviv University and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. In addition to Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Sonnenschein has served as Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, and the University of Massachusetts. He has been Visiting Professor at Stanford University, University of Paris XII, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv University. He is married to Elizabeth Gunn Sonnenschein, an epidemiologist. They have three daughters and five grandchildren. Hugo Sonnenschein died on July 15, 2021 in Chicago, IL. | |
| 70 | Name: | Dr. Thomas Sowell | | | Institution: | Hoover Institution | | | Year Elected: | 1998 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1930 | | | | | | |
Thomas Sowell has served as Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution since 1995. His books Say's Law and Knowledge and Decisions are important contributions to the literature of classical economics, and he has been a pioneer in analyzing the effect of racial and ethnic differences in terms of economic theory and based on evidence from a wide range of cultures. His many writings in the area are important statements of an absolutely independent mind. In addition, he has written widely for the public as a strong defender of personal freedom, private markets and free enterprise. Dr. Sowell received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1968 and has served on the faculties of Cornell University (1965-69), Brandeis University (1969-70) and the University of California, Los Angeles (1970-72). Among his other publications are Black Education: Myths and Tragedies (1972); Ethnic America (1981); Marxism: Philosophy and Economics (1985); A Conflict of Visions (1987); The Vision of the Self-Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (1995); Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy (2000); Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study (2004); Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005); and On Classical Economics (2006). | |
| 71 | Name: | Dr. Joseph J. Spengler | | | Institution: | Duke University | | | Year Elected: | 1954 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1902 | | | Death Date: | 1/2/91 | | | | |
| 72 | Name: | Dr. T. N. Srinivasan | | | Institution: | Yale University | | | Year Elected: | 1999 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1933 | | | Death Date: | November 11, 2018 | | | | | | |
T. N. Srinivasan was a scholar of world renown in the fields of international trade and economic development. He made innovative contributions to the analysis of poverty, income distribution, and the world trading system. The founder and co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics (1972-76), Dr. Srinivasan was the Samuel C. Park, Jr. Professor of Economics at Yale University from 1980 until his retirement. He received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1962 and was elected to the membership of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1982. In addition to his impressive theoretical work, he has a genuine impact on Indian economic policy. He worked for the Perspective Planning Division from 1961-76 and was tapped in by Manmohan Singh to do a review of economic reforms in 1993. T.N. Srinivasan died in Chennai, India on November 11, 2018 at the age of 85. | |
| 73 | Name: | Dr. George J. Stigler | | | Institution: | University of Chicago | | | Year Elected: | 1955 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1911 | | | Death Date: | 12/1/91 | | | | |
| 74 | Name: | Dr. Joseph E. Stiglitz | | | Institution: | Columbia University | | | Year Elected: | 1997 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1943 | | | | | | |
Joseph E. Stiglitz was born in Gary, Indiana in 1943. A graduate of Amherst College, he received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967, became a full professor at Yale University in 1970, and in 1979 was awarded the John Bates Clark Award, given biennially by the American Economic Association to the economist under 40 who has made the most significant contribution to the field. He has also taught at Princeton University, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was the Drummond Professor and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He is now University Professor at Columbia University and Chair of Columbia University's Committee on Global Thought. In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information. Dr. Stiglitz has been credited with helping create "The Economics of Information," a new branch of economics exploring the consequences of information asymmetries and pioneering such pivotal concepts as adverse selection and moral hazard, which have now become standard tools not only of theorists, but of policy analysts. He has made major contributions to macro-economics and monetary theory, to development economics and trade theory, to public and corporate finance, to the theories of industrial organization and rural organization, and to the theories of welfare economics and of income and wealth distribution. In the 1980s, he helped revive interest in the economics of research and development. His work has helped explain the circumstances in which markets do not work well and how selective government intervention can improve their performance. Recognized around the world as a leading economic educator, he has written textbooks that have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He founded one of the leading economics journals, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, and his book Globalization and Its Discontents (2001) has been translated into 35 languages and has sold more than one million copies worldwide. Other recent books include Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy; The Roaring Nineties; (with Bruce Greenwald) Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics; (with Andrew Charlton) Fair Trade for All; Making Globalization Work (2006); and The Price of Inequality (2012); People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent (2019). Dr. Stiglitz was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993-95, during the Clinton administration, and served as CEA chairman from 1995-97. He then became Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997-2000. He also holds a part-time appointment at the University of Manchester as Chair of the Management Board and Director of Graduate Summer Programs at the Brooks World Poverty Institute. In 2018 he was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize. | |
| 75 | Name: | Dr. James Tobin | | | Institution: | Yale University | | | Year Elected: | 1959 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 302. Economics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1918 | | | Death Date: | March 11, 2002 | | | | |
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