Paul Samuelson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Paul Samuelson
Samuelson circa 1970-1975
Born	Paul Anthony Samuelson (1915-05-15)May 15, 1915 Gary, Indiana, U.S.
Died	December 13, 2009(2009-12-13) (aged 94) Belmont, Massachusetts, U.S.
Institution	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Field	Macroeconomics
School or tradition	Neo-Keynesian economics
Alma mater	University of Chicago (BA) Harvard University (MA, PhD)
Doctoral advisor	Joseph Schumpeter Wassily Leontief
Doctoral students	Robert Solow, Lawrence Klein Robert C. Merton
Influences	Keynes • Schumpeter • Leontief • Haberler • Hansen • Wilson • Wicksell • Lindahl
Contributions	Neoclassical synthesis Mathematical economics Economic methodology Revealed preference International trade Economic growth Public goods
Awards	John Bates Clark Medal (1947) Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1970) National Medal of Science (1996)
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he "has done more than any other contemporary economist to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory". Economic historian Randall E. Parker has called him the "Father of Modern Economics", and The New York Times considers him to be the "foremost academic economist of the 20th century".

Samuelson was likely the most influential economist of the latter half of the 20th century. In 1996, when he was awarded the National Medal of Science, considered to be America's top science-honor, President Bill Clinton commended Samuelson for his "fundamental contributions to economic science" for over 60 years. Samuelson considered mathematics to be the "natural language" for economists and contributed significantly to the mathematical foundations of economics with his book Foundations of Economic Analysis. He was author of the best-selling economics textbook of all time: Economics: An Introductory Analysis, first published in 1948. It was the second American textbook that attempted to explain the principles of Keynesian economics. It is now in its 19th edition, having sold nearly 4 million copies in 40 languages. James Poterba, former head of MIT's Department of Economics, noted that by his book, Samuelson "leaves an immense legacy, as a researcher and a teacher, as one of the giants on whose shoulders every contemporary economist stands".

He entered the University of Chicago at age 16, during the depths of the Great Depression, and received his PhD in economics from Harvard. After graduating, he became an assistant professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) when he was 25 years of age and a full professor at age 32. In 1966, he was named Institute Professor, MIT's highest faculty honor. He spent his career at MIT, where he was instrumental in turning its Department of Economics into a world-renowned institution by attracting other noted economists to join the faculty, including later winners of the Nobel Prize Robert Solow, Franco Modigliani, Robert C. Merton, Joseph Stiglitz, and Paul Krugman.

He served as an advisor to President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson, and was a consultant to the United States Treasury, the Bureau of the Budget and the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Samuelson wrote a weekly column for Newsweek magazine along with Chicago School economist Milton Friedman, where they represented opposing sides: Samuelson, as a self described "Cafeteria Keynesian", claimed taking the Keynesian perspective but only accepting what he felt was good in it. By contrast, Friedman represented the monetarist perspective. Together with Henry Wallich, their 1967 columns earned the magazine a Gerald Loeb Special Award in 1968.

Samuelson worked in many theoretical fields, including: consumer theory; welfare economics; capital; finance, particularly the efficient-market hypothesis; public finance, particularly optimal allocation; international economics, particularly the Balassa–Samuelson effect and the Heckscher–Ohlin model; macroeconomics, particularly the overlapping generations model; and market economics.

Biography

Samuelson in 1997

Samuelson was born in Gary, Indiana, on May 15, 1915, to Frank Samuelson, a pharmacist, and Ella née Lipton. His family, he later said, was "made up of upwardly mobile Jewish immigrants from Poland who had prospered considerably in World War I, because Gary was a brand new steel-town when my family went there". In 1923, Samuelson moved to Chicago where he graduated from Hyde Park High School (now Hyde Park Career Academy). He then studied at the University of Chicago and received his Bachelor of Arts degree there in 1935. He said he was born as an economist, at 8.00am on January 2, 1932, in the University of Chicago classroom. The lecture mentioned as the cause was on the British economist Thomas Malthus, who most famously studied population growth and its effects. Samuelson felt there was a dissonance between neoclassical economics and the way the system seemed to behave; he said Henry Simons and Frank Knight were a big influence on him. He next completed his Master of Arts degree in 1936, and his Doctor of Philosophy in 1941 at Harvard University. He won the David A. Wells prize in 1941 for writing the best doctoral dissertation at Harvard University in economics, for a thesis titled "Foundations of Analytical Economics", which later turned into Foundations of Economic Analysis. As a graduate student at Harvard, Samuelson studied economics under Joseph Schumpeter, Wassily Leontief, Gottfried Haberler, and the "American Keynes" Alvin Hansen. Samuelson moved to MIT as an assistant professor in 1940 and remained there until his death.

Samuelson's family included many well-known economists, including brother Robert Summers, sister-in-law Anita Summers, brother-in-law Kenneth Arrow and nephew Larry Summers.

During his seven decades as an economist, Samuelson's professional positions included:

• Assistant professor of economics at MIT, 1940; associate professor, 1944.
• Member of the Radiation Laboratory 1944–45.
• Professor of international economic relations (part-time) at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1945.
• Guggenheim Fellowship from 1948 to 1949
• Professor of economics at MIT beginning in 1947 and Institute Professor beginning in 1962.
• Vernon F. Taylor Visiting Distinguished Professor at Trinity University (Texas) in spring 1989.

Death

Samuelson died after a brief illness on December 13, 2009, at the age of 94. His death was announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. James M. Poterba, an economics professor at MIT and the president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, commented that Samuelson "leaves an immense legacy, as a researcher and a teacher, as one of the giants on whose shoulders every contemporary economist stands". Susan Hockfield, the president of MIT, said that Samuelson "transformed everything he touched: the theoretical foundations of his field, the way economics was taught around the world, the ethos and stature of his department, the investment practices of MIT, and the lives of his colleagues and students".

Fields of interest

As professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Samuelson worked in many fields, including:

• Consumer theory, where he pioneered the revealed preference approach, which is a method by which one can discern a consumer's utility function, by observing their behavior. Rather than postulate a utility function or a preference ordering, Samuelson imposed conditions directly on the choices made by individuals – their preferences as revealed by their choices.
• Welfare economics, in which he popularised the Lindahl–Bowen–Samuelson conditions (criteria for deciding whether an action will improve welfare) and demonstrated in 1950 the insufficiency of a national-income index to reveal which of two social options was uniformly outside the other's (feasible) possibility function (Collected Scientific Papers, v. 2, ch. 77; Fischer, 1987, p. 236).
• Capital theory, where he is known for 1958 consumption loans model and a variety of turnpike theorems and involved in Cambridge capital controversy.
• Finance theory, in which he is known for the efficient-market hypothesis.
• Public finance theory, in which he is particularly known for his work on determining the optimal allocation of resources in the presence of both public goods and private goods.
• International economics, where he influenced the development of two important international trade models: the Balassa–Samuelson effect, and the Heckscher–Ohlin model (with the Stolper–Samuelson theorem).
• Macroeconomics, where he popularized the overlapping generations model as a way to analyze economic agents' behavior across multiple periods of time (Collected Scientific Papers, v. 1, ch. 21) and contributed to formation of the neoclassical synthesis.
• Market economics: Samuelson believed unregulated markets have drawbacks, he stated, "free markets do not stabilise themselves. Zero regulating is vastly suboptimal to rational regulating. Libertarianism is its own worst enemy!" Samuelson strongly criticised Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, arguing their opposition to state intervention "tells us something about them rather than something about Genghis Khan or Franklin Roosevelt. It is paranoid to warn against inevitable slippery slopes ... once individual commercial freedoms are in any way infringed upon."

Impact

Samuelson is considered one of the founders of neo-Keynesian economics and a seminal figure in the development of neoclassical economics.

He was also essential in creating the neoclassical synthesis, which ostensibly incorporated Keynesian and neoclassical principles and still dominates current mainstream economics. In 2003, Samuelson was one of the ten Nobel Prize–winning economists signing the Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts.

Aphorisms and quotations

Stanislaw Ulam once challenged Samuelson to name one theory in all of the social sciences that is both true and nontrivial. Several years later, Samuelson responded with David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage: "That it is logically true need not be argued before a mathematician; that is not trivial is attested by the thousands of important and intelligent men who have never been able to grasp the doctrine for themselves or to believe it after it was explained to them."

For many years, Samuelson wrote a column for Newsweek.

In the early editions of his famous, bestselling economics textbook Paul Samuelson joked that GDP falls when a man "marries his maid".

Criticisms

Textbook influences in higher education

Samuelson's textbook was a watershed in introducing a serious study of business cycles in the economics curriculum. It was particularly timely because it followed the Great Depression, which had only ended because of the fiscal stimulus of World War II. The study of business cycles along with the introduction of the Keynesian approach of aggregate demand set the stage for the macroeconomic revolution in America, which then diffused throughout the world through translations into every major language. Generations of students, who then became teachers, learned their first and most influential lessons from Samuelson's Economics. It attracted many imitators, who became successful in different niches of the college market.

The text was not without criticism. While it praised the "mixed economy" of market and government, some found that too radical and attacked it as socialist. As a precursor to criticisms of Samuelson's Economics textbook, Lorie Tarshis's textbook was attacked by trustees of, and donors to, American colleges and universities as preaching a "socialist heresy". Piling on, William F. Buckley, Jr., in his 1951 book, God and Man at Yale, devoted an entire chapter, attacking both Samuelson's and Tarshis' textbooks. For Samuelson's book, Buckley drew from the Educational Examiner and credited it as an "excellent review of Samuelson's text." ("Note to Chapter Two." p. 234) For Tarshis' book, Buckley drew from Merwin K. Hart's organization to wit: "I am also grateful to the National Economic Council for its telling analysis of the Tarshis." ("Note to Chapter Two." p. 234) Buckley essentially characterized both as – in the words of Paul Davidson – "communist inspired". Buckley, for the rest of his life, defended the criticisms set forth in his book.

Economic growth of USSR

One criticism – of a concept that Samuelson added to his Economics textbook – was the comparison of USA growth rates with those of the USSR, which, according to the criticism, was inconsistent with historical GNP differences. The textbook's 1967 edition (7th ed.) extrapolates (projects) the possibility of USSR/US real GNP parity between 1977 and 1995. Each subsequent edition extrapolates a date range further in the future until those graphs were dropped from the 1985 edition (12th ed.).

Phillips Curve

Samuelson, together with Robert Solow, helped develop and popularize the mathematics of the Phillips Curve. The curve suggested that unemployment and inflation were inversely related; with the advent of stagflation in the 1970s some economists including Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek attacked the economics based on the Phillips Curve as questionable or mistaken.

Memberships

• Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the United States National Academy of Sciences, fellow of Royal Society of London
• Fellow of the American Philosophical Society and the British Academy;
• President (1965–68) of the International Economic Association
• Member and past president (1961) of the American Economic Association
• Member of the editorial board and past-president (1951) of the Econometric Society
• Fellow, council member and past vice-president of the Royal Economic Society.
• Member of Phi Beta Kappa.

List of publications

• Samuelson, Paul A. (1947), Enlarged ed. 1983. Foundations of Economic Analysis, Harvard University Press.
• Samuelson, Paul A. (1948), Economics: An Introductory Analysis, ISBN: 0-07-074741-5; with William D. Nordhaus (since 1985), 2009, 19th ed., McGraw–Hill. ISBN: 978-0-07-126383-2
• Samuelson, Paul A. (1952), "Economic Theory and Mathematics – An Appraisal", American Economic Review, 42(2), pp. 56–66.
• Samuelson, Paul A (1954). "The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure". Review of Economics and Statistics 36 (4): 387–89. doi:10.2307/1925895. https://semanticscholar.org/paper/9a8d0b15760d0ed38e5986d53b095ccd6e783131.
• Samuelson, Paul A. (1958), Linear Programming and Economic Analysis with Robert Dorfman and Robert M. Solow, McGraw–Hill. Chapter-preview links.
• Samuelson, Paul A. (1960). "Efficient paths of capital accumulation in terms of the calculus of variations". Mathematical models in the social sciences, 1959: Proceedings of the first Stanford symposium. Stanford mathematical studies in the social sciences, IV. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. pp. 77–88. ISBN 9780804700214.
• Samuelson, Paul A. (1982). "Quesnay's 'Tableau Economique' as a theorist would formulate it today". Classical and Marxian political economy: essays in honour of Ronald L. Meek. London: Macmillan. pp. 45–78. ISBN 9780333321997.
• The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson, MIT Press. Preview links for vol. 1–3 below. Contents links for vol. 4–7. .

Samuelson, Paul A. (1966), Vol. 1 → via Google Books, 1937–mid-1964.

Samuelson, Paul A. (1966), Vol. 2 → via Google Books, 1937–mid-1964.

Samuelson, Paul A. (1972), Vol. 3 → via Google Books, mid-1964–1970.

Samuelson, Paul A. (1977), Vol. 4 → via Internet Archive (registration required), 1971–76.

Samuelson, Paul A. (1986), Vol. 5 → via Google Books, 1977–1985 Description → via

Samuelson, Paul A. (2011), Vol. 6, 1986–2009. Description → via Wayback Machine

Samuelson, Paul A. (2011), Vol. 7, 1986–2009.

• Paul A. Samuelson Papers, 1933–2010, Rubenstein Library, Duke University. .
• Samuelson, Paul A. (1983). "My Life Philosophy," The American Economist, 27(2), pp. 5-12.
• Samuelson, Paul A. (2007), Inside the Economist's Mind: Conversations with Eminent Economists with William A. Barnett, Blackwell Publishing, ISBN: 1-4051-5917-0
• Samuelson, Paul A. (2002), Paul Samuelson and the Foundations of Modern Economics, Transaction Publishers, ISBN: 978-0-76-580114-2
• Samuelson, Paul A. (2004), Macroeconomics
• Samuelson, Paul A. (2004), Microeconomics

See also

In Spanish: Paul Samuelson para niños