Lawrence Klein

Lawrence Robert Klein (September 14, 1920 – October 20, 2013) was an American economist. For his work in creating computer models to forecast economic trends in the field of econometrics in the Department of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1980 specifically "for the creation of econometric models and their application to the analysis of economic fluctuations and economic policies." Due to his efforts, such models have become widespread among economists. Harvard University professor Martin Feldstein told the Wall Street Journal that Klein "was the first to create the statistical models that embodied Keynesian economics," tools still used by the Federal Reserve Bank and other central banks.

Life and career Klein was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Blanche (née Monheit) and Leo Byron Klein. He went on to graduate from Los Angeles City College, where he learned calculus; the University of California, Berkeley, where he began his computer modeling and earned a BA in Economics in 1942; he earned his PhD in Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1944, where he was Paul Samuelson's first doctoral student.

Early model-building Klein then moved to the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics, which was then at the University of Chicago, now the Cowles Foundation. There he built a model of the United States economy to forecast the development of business fluctuations and to study the effects of government economic-political policy. After World War II Klein used his model to correctly predict, against the prevailing expectation, that there would be an economic upturn rather than a depression due to increasing consumer demand from returning servicemen.

McCarthyism and move to England In 1954, Klein's brief membership in the Communist Party was made public the American Philosophical Society, and the United States National Academy of Sciences.

He died at the age of 93 in his home on October 20, 2013.

Publications

Economic Fluctuations in the United States, 1921–41 (1950) An Econometric Model of the United States, 1929–52 (with AS Goldberger, 1955) The Keynesian revolution (1947)

The Wharton Econometric Forecasting Model (with MK Evans, 1967) A Textbook of Econometrics (1973) The Brookings Model (With Gary Fromm. 1975) Econometric Model Performance (1976) An Introduction to Econometric Forecasting and Forecasting Models (1980) Econometric Models As Guides for Decision Making (1982) The Economics of Supply and Demand 1983 Economics, Econometrics and The LINK (with M Dutta, 1995) China and India: Two Asian Economic Giants, Two Different Systems (2004). Article free downloadable at the journal Applied Econometrics and International Development http://www.usc.es/economet/aeid.htm