Routledge Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition
Kuznets, Simon S., 1901–85 (B3)
US economist and statistician of Russian origin. After emigration to the USA in 1922, he was educated at Columbia University and began his distinguished career in project with Wesley MITCHELL on national income at the US NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH. He was professor at the Universities of Pennsylvania (1930–54), John Hopkins (1954–60) and Harvard (1960–71).
His work on statistical data earned him the NOBEL PRIZE FOR ECONOMICS in 1971.
His major contributions to economics include a reconstruction of US NATIONAL INCOME accounts from 1869, discovering cycles of fifteen to twenTty years in the economy, which he described in Secular Movements in Production and Prices (1930), and investigating the relationship between growth and income distribution. In his long, 929-page book National Income and its Composition, 1919–38 (1940), he showed his great care in the use of accounting concepts and the refining of raw data.
His approach to the study of economic growth led him to examine productivity and SOCIAL COSTS and to formulate the thesis that the dominating factor in economic growth is the proportion of labour and capital of a country devoted to its growth industries. He noted that income inequality increased with economic growth in poor countries and the reverse in rich countries. Although regarded as the father of NATIONAL INCOME analysis, he has been the most wary critic of its use as an indicator of ECONOMIC WELFARE.
See also: Stone, John Richard Nicholas
References
Lundberg, E. (1971) ‘Simon Kuznets’ contribution to economics’, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 73:444–61.
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