One of the greatest economists of this century, and perhaps of all times too, died yesterday.
Paul A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in economics and the foremost academic economist of the 20th century, died Sunday at his home in Belmont, Mass. He was 94.
His death was announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which Mr. Samuelson helped build into one of the world’s great centers of graduate education in economics.
In receiving the Nobel Prize in 1970, Mr. Samuelson was credited with transforming his discipline from one that ruminates about economic issues to one that solves problems, answering questions about cause and effect with mathematical rigor and clarity. [Paul A. Samuelson, Economist, Dies at 94. Michael M. Weinstein. New York Times. December 13 2009]
I would say, his contributions to economics are as great as Leon and Walras’, who, back in the 19th century, together with other marginalists, first used mathematics in a big way to advance the field of economics.
