Jan Tinbergen

Jan Tinbergen (The Hague, April 12, 1903– June 9, 1994 The Hague), Dutch economist, was awarded the first Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel during 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes. Tinbergen was a founding trustee of Economists for Peace and Security.

Biography

Jan Tinbergen was the eldest of five children of Dirk Cornelis Tinbergen and Jeannette van Eek. His brother Niko would also win a Nobel Prize (for physiology, during 1973) for his work in ethology, while his youngest brother Luuk would become a famous ornithologist. Tinbergen studied mathematics and physics at the University of Leiden under Paul Ehrenfest. During 1929 he earned his PhD degree at this university with his thesis entitled "Minimumproblemen in de natuurkunde en de economie" (Minimisation problems in Physics and Economics). From 1929 till 1945 he worked, in addition to his professorship at Erasmus University Rotterdam, for the Dutch statistical office. He was also consultant to the League of Nations. From 1945 till 1955 he served as the first director of the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. Jan Tinbergen was a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science and of the International Academy of Science. During 1956 he founded the Econometric Institute at the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam together with Henri Theil, who also was his successor in Rotterdam. The Tinbergen Institute was named in his honour.

Work

Tinbergen became known for his 'Tinbergen Norm', which is the principle that, if the difference between the least and greatest income in a company exceeds a rate of 1:5, that will not help the company and may be counterproductive.

Tinbergen developed the first national comprehensive macroeconomic model, which he first developed for the Netherlands and later applied to the United States and the United Kingdom after World War II.

Tinbergen's work was later continued by Lawrence Klein, contributing to another Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. For his cultural contributions, he was given the Gouden Ganzenveer during 1985.

Literature

Centralization and Decentralization in Economic Policy. Westport: Greenwood, 1981. ISBN 0-313-23077-3.
Der Dialog Nord-Süd: Informationen zur Entwicklungspolitik. Frankfurt am Main: Europ. Verlagsanstalt, 1977.
The dynamics of business cycles: A Study in Economic Fluctuations. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1974. ISBN 0-226-80418-6.
Economic policy: Principles and Design. Amsterdam, 1978. ISBN 0-7204-3129-8.
Rompzy, Eric van. Jan Tinbergen. Antwerpen: NBH, 1974.

Translation

The phrase "Jan Tinbergen" occurs as such in the following languages: English, Catalan, Danish, German, Spanish, Esperanto, French, Scottish Gaelic, Galician, Ido, Indonesian, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian (Bokmål), Occitan, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish.

Translation(s) in other languages: Arabic: جان تنبرجن, Bulgarian: Ян Тинберген, Persian: یان تینبرگن, Korean: 얀 틴베르헌, Latin: Ioannes Tinbergen, Japanese: ヤン・ティンバーゲン, Russian: Тинберген, Ян, Chinese: 简·丁伯根.