Wassily Leontief
New York University
August 5, 1906 - February 5, 1999
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Scientific Discipline: Economic Sciences Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1974)
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Economist Wassily Leontief was best known for inventing the universally utilized input-output analysis technique. Part of the general equilibrium theory branch of economics, input-output analysis sought to describe the interdependence of seemingly independent economic events and relationships; it used an input-output transaction table, a matrix representation of a national econonmy, to divide the general economy into several sectors. Changes in one sector could be identified and used to predict changes in other sectors and the economy as a whole. His new method for economic analysis, published in The Structure of American Economy, 1919-1929 in 1941, was (and still is) employed by the U.S. government and nearly 80 foreign countries to solve a wide range of economic problems including the projection of manpower needs and employment opportunities, the inflationary process, and international trade. Leontief also applied his technique to analyze the impact of economic activity on the environment’s quality. His other important contributions were in statistical demand analysis, the theory of aggregation, the economic effects of global disarmament, and international trade.
A resident of Russia, Leontief received his M.A. degree from the University of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1925 and his Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1928. From 1927 to 1929, he worked as a research associate for the University of Kiel and as an adviser to the Chinese government. He came to America in 1931, becoming a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York. The following year, Leontief accepted a position as an instructor of economics at Harvard University, where he would rise to an assistant professor in 1933, an associate professor in 1939, and a full professor in 1946. He organized the Harvard Economic Research Project in 1948, and he served as its director until 1973. In 1953, he was appointed Harvard’s Henry Lee Professor of Economics. Due to complications with colleagues and the economics department at Harvard, he joined the faculty of New York University as a professor of economics in 1975. He was the founder and director of the university’s Institute for Economic Analysis from 1978 to 1985. During this time, Leontief also worked as an adviser to the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Commerce. He was elected the president of the Econometric Society in 1954 and of the American Economic Association in 1970. For developing input-output economic analysis, Leontief was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1973.
