Kenneth Arrow
American economist, mathematician and political theorist; Nobel laureate and pioneer of social choice theory and general equilibrium analysis.
At age 95, Arrow passed away on February 21, 2017, at his residence in Palo Alto, California.[1]
Quick Facts
- School of thought
- Neoclassical economics
- Birth name
- Kenneth Joseph Arrow
- Born
- August 23, 1921
- Birthplace
- New York City, U.S.
- Died
- 21 February 2017
- Place of death
- Palo Alto, California, U.S.
- Institution
- Stanford University
- University of Chicago
- Harvard University
- Field
- Microeconomics
- General equilibrium theory
- Social choice theory
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
Arrow presented the first and second fundamental theorems of welfare economics in 1951.[2] Harold Hotelling, Arrow's teacher at Columbia University, persuaded him to shift his academic focus to economics.[3] Columbia University granted Arrow his PhD in 1951.[4] Arrow helped lay the groundwork for endogenous growth theory, which aims to identify what drives technical change.[5]
Markets with asymmetric information, such as those for medical care, were studied by Arrow to understand the problems this creates.[6]
What the cited sources add
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that Arrow's impossibility theorem answers a basic question in the theory of collective decision-making.[7] Arrow's theorem says no aggregation procedures meet certain conditions concerning the autonomy of the people and the rationality of their preferences.[7] The John Bates Clark Medal is awarded annually to an American economist under forty who made the most significant contribution to economic thought.[8] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains that Arrow's framework is now widely used for studying problems in welfare economics.[7]
Amartya Sen extended Arrow's framework to take into account cardinal information about utility.[7] Arrow restated the conditions of his impossibility theorem in the second edition of Social Choice and Individual Values.[7] According to a review by Stefancic, Arrow's doctoral students who later became Nobel laureates include John S. Harsanyi, Eric S. Maskin, Roger B. Myerson, A. Michael Spence, and Joseph E. Stiglitz.[9]
References
- Wikipedia, "Kenneth Arrow" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Weinstein, "Kenneth Arrow, Nobel-Winning Economist Whose Influence Spanned Decades, Dies at 95", The New York Times, 21 February 2017 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Kenneth Arrow" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Kenneth Arrow (1921– )", Liberty Fund, 2008, p. 523–24 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Kenneth Arrow" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; Klein, "Kenneth J. Arrow [Ideological Profiles of the Economics Laureates]", Econ Journal Watch, 2013, p. 268–81; "Kenneth J. Arrow, MA, PhD", Stanford University; Maskin, "The Economics of Kenneth J. Arrow: A Selective Review", Annual Review of Economics, 2 August 2019, p. 1–26 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Kenneth Arrow" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; D., "The best since the 1960s?", The Economist, Feb 25, 2010; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Kenneth Arrow" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Romer, "Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth", Journal of Political Economy, 1986, p. 1002–37; Maskin, "The Economics of Kenneth J. Arrow: A Selective Review", Annual Review of Economics, 2 August 2019, p. 1–26; Arrow, "The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing", The Review of Economic Studies, 1962, p. 155–73; Barro, "Economic Growth", MIT Press, 2004, p. 212–20 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Kenneth Arrow" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Savedoff, "Kenneth Arrow and the birth of health economics", Bulletin of the World Health Organization, February 2004, p. 139–40 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Morreau, "Arrow's Theorem", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1 January 2016. facts only, no text reused. plato.stanford.edu
- "John Bates Clark Medal", www.aeaweb.org. facts only, no text reused. aeaweb.org
- Stefancic, "Review of J. Maesse et al. (2022) "Power and Influence of Economists: Contributions to the Social Studies of Economics" World Economics Association", WEA Commentaries, July 2021, p. 11–12. facts only, no text reused. worldeconomicsassociation.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Kenneth Arrow (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Scientists & Inventors
Elsewhere in Historical Figures
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced