Henri Theil

Henri (Hans) Theil (October 13, 1924 – August 20, 2000) was a Dutch econometrician and professor at the Netherlands School of Economics in Rotterdam, known for his contributions to the field of econometrics.

Biography Born in Amsterdam, Theil started to study mathematics and physics at Utrecht University in 1942. Later in World War II he was arrested and was imprisoned in Vught. After the war he started to study economics at the Gemeente-Universiteit Amsterdam, where in 1951 he received his PhD under Pieter Hennipman.

After graduation Theil started working as researcher for the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis under Jan Tinbergen. In 1968 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. In 1980 he became correspondent of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Work Theil is best known for his invention of the widely used two-stage least squares (2SLS) method in 1953. He is also responsible for the Theil–Sen estimator for robust regression. Theil's archives are kept at Hope College.

Publications Theil published a series of books and numerous articles. Books: Theil, H. (1954), Linear aggregation of economic relations. Amsterdam. North-Holland Publishing Company. Theil, H. (1958), Economic forecasts and policy. Assisted by J.S. Cramer, H. Moerman, and A. Russchen.

Theil, H. (1965), Operations research and quantitative economics. With John C. G. Boot and Teun Kloek Theil, H. (1966), Applied economic forecasting. With G.A.C. Beerens, C.B. Tilanus, and C.G. De Leeuw . Vol. 4. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. Theil, H. (1967), Economics and information theory. Vol. 7. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Theil, H. (1971), Principles of Econometrics. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley. Theil, H. (1972), Statistical decomposition analysis: With applications in the social and administrative sciences. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. Theil, H. (1989), International evidence on consumption patterns. With Ching-Fan Chung and James L. Seale.

About Theil Baldev Raj, J. Koerts eds. (1992) Henri Theil's Contributions to Economics and Econometrics: Econometric theory and methodology. Vol. I. Springer.