Kuznets, Simon (1901–1985)

Abstract

Kuznets was born in Pinsk, Russia, on 30 April 1901 and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 9 July 1985. After a brief period as youthful head of a statistical office in the Ukraine under the early Soviet regime, Kuznets emigrated to the United States, where he received his BA in 1923, MA in 1924, and Ph.D. in economics in 1926, all from Columbia University. He was a member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York from 1927 to 1961, and held professorial appointments in economics at the University of Pennsylvania (1930–54), Johns Hopkins University (1954–60), and Harvard University (1960–71). After his retirement, Kuznets continued an active research career for another decade. During the Second World War he was associate director from 1942 to 1944 of the Bureau of Planning and Statistics of the US War Production Board. Kuznets was elected president of the American Economic Association in 1954 and the American Statistical Association in 1949, and was the 1971 recipient of the Nobel prize in economics.