Kuznets, Simon

Kuznets, Simon ko͝oznĕtsˈ, kŭzˈnĕts [key], 1901–85, American economist, b. Kharkiv, Russia (now in Ukraine), grad. Columbia (B.S., 1923; M.A., 1924; Ph.D., 1926). He emigrated to the United States in 1922. After serving as a fellow on the Social Science Research Council (1925–27), he worked for the National Bureau of Economic Research (1927–63), where he became involved in the study of business cycles. Kuznets taught at the Univ. of Pennsylvania (1930–54) and Johns Hopkins (1954–60); he joined the faculty of Harvard in 1960. Generally credited with having developed the Gross National Product as a measure of economic output, Kuznets was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1971. His National Income and Its Composition, 1919 to 1938 (1941) is considered his major work. A prolific writer, Kuznets has also written National Income and Capital Formation (1938), National Product Since 1869 (1946), Economic Growth of Nations (1971), and numerous other books and scholarly articles.

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