American economist Wassily Leontiev was born on August 5, 1905 in St. Petersburg (Russia). His parents are Vasily Leontiev, professor of economics, and Evgenia (nee Becker) Leontiev. The years of his childhood were a time of great social and political upheaval. He was eight years old when the first World War. He was a direct witness to the turmoil of the Russian Revolution and remembered Lenin's speech at a mass rally outside the Winter Palace in Petrograd, which he attended.
Entering Leningrad University in 1921, he first studied philosophy and sociology, and then economic sciences. They have developed Theoretical basis input-output balance in the USSR in 1923-1924. After graduating from the university in 1925, he continued his education at the University of Berlin. In 1927-1928, while still a student, he began his professional career as a junior research fellow at the University of Kiel. At the age of 22, he received his Ph.D. in economics.
He spent the next year in Pankin as an economic adviser to the Ministry of railways China. After emigrating to the United States in 1931, he joined the National Bureau of Economic Research. Wassily Leontiev applied the method of analysis of interindustry relations with the use of the apparatus of linear algebra to study the US economy. In 1932 he married the poet Estell Helen Marks. Their only daughter, Svetlana Alpers (through her husband), later became a professor of art history at the University of California, Berkeley. L. began his long-term work in the United States at Harvard University in 1931. as a teacher of economics. In 1946 he became a full (real) professor. Two years later, he founded the Harvard Economic Research Project - a center for research in the field of analysis by the method of "cost - output" - and led this project until its closure in 1973. Ibid, at Harvard University, L. headed the Department of Political Economy named after Henry Lees 1953 to 1975, after which he became Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute economic analysis New York University.
Since the publication in 1936 of his first article on the method of "cost - output", scientific works L. distinguished by high analytical rigor and a wide range of interests in general economic problems. Although L. himself is a qualified mathematician, he constantly criticizes attempts to apply mathematical theories to explain the world's economic problems. In his opinion, economics is one of the applied sciences, and its theories can be useful if they are empirically implemented in life. This point of view can be clearly seen already in his first book, The Structure American economy, 1919...1929: An Empirical Application of Equilibrium Analysis" ("The Structure of the American Economy, 1919...1929: An Empirical Application of Equilibrium Analysis"), published in 1941.
This original work, outlining the method of economic analysis "cost - output", formed the basis of the reputation of L. as an outstanding innovator in the field of economics. However, the recognition of his system in a world engulfed by the Great Depression did not come immediately. The most painful economic problems then were chronic unemployment and the instability of the capitalist economy. The world then fully listened to the English economist John Maynard Keynes, who published in 1936 a book called The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. During World War II, Leontief's input-output matrix for the German economy served as a target for the US Air Force. A similar balance for the USSR, developed by Leontiev, was used by the US authorities to decide on the volume and structure of Lend-Lease. At this time, unemployment as a problem disappeared, but after the war it sharply worsened again.
That was the first time the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics turned to the Leontief input-output method. First in 1939 and then in 1947, the L. model was used to predict how general and sectoral employment would change as the economy moved from peace to war and back.
Since the input-output method has proved its usefulness as an analytical tool in a new area regional economy, chess balances began to be drawn up for the economy of some American cities. Gradually, the preparation of such balances became a standard operation. In the United States Department of Commerce, for example, the Office of Interindustry Economics has begun publishing such balance sheets every five years. United Nations, The World Bank and most governments, including the government of the Soviet Union, have also become involved in the application of input-output analysis as the most important method economic planning and government budget policy. In 1959, the Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR developed a reporting intersectoral balance in value terms (for 83 industries) and the world's first intersectoral balance in physical terms (for 257 positions).
At the same time, applied work was launched in the central planning bodies (Gosplan and the State Economic Council) and their scientific organizations. The first planned intersectoral balances in value and physical terms were built in 1962. Further work was extended to the republics and regions. According to the data for 1966, intersectoral balances were built for all Union republics and economic regions RSFSR. Soviet scientists created groundwork for a wider application of intersectoral models (including dynamic, optimization, in-kind value, interregional, etc.)
Leontief's success in applying input-output models of economic analysis is due in no small part to his outstanding ability as a generalist economist with diverse interests in many fields, such as the theory international trade, monopoly theory, econometrics. L. was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1973. for the development of the input-output method and for its application to important economic problems. Being one of the first economists concerned about the impact of economic activity on the quality of the environment. L. brought in his Nobel lecture a simple model of "cost - output" relating to the world ecology, in which environmental pollution clearly figured as an independent sector. "In less developed countries, - he concluded, - the introduction of mitigating activities of strict standards against environmental pollution ... will cause an increase in employment, although it will require some sacrifices in the sphere of consumption. "Economist Leontiev market costs
In addition to the Nobel Prize, he was elevated to the rank of officer of the Legion of Honor of France. He is a member of the American National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Sciences and Arts. British Academy and the Royal Statistical Society in London. He served as president of the Econometric Society in 1954 and of the American Economic Association in 1970. Among others, he received honorary doctorates from the universities of Brussels, York, Louvain, Paris.
An important field of activity of Vasily Vasilyevich at all stages was the training of scientific personnel. He did a lot of good for the young scientists of Russia who were trained at Harvard and New York. V.V. Leontiev compares the leaders of our state enterprises, who are accustomed to planned deliveries and are not able to find suppliers and consumers on their own, with penguins who are very difficult to teach to fly. Vasily Vasilyevich Leontiev died on February 5, 1999 in New York.
- (Leontief) (1906 1999), American economist, foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1988). Born in Russia, since 1931 in the USA. Developed in the 30s. method of economic and mathematical analysis "costs of output" for the study of intersectoral relations, the structure of the economy and ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Leontiev, Vasily Vasilievich- LEONTIEF (Leontief) Vasily Vasilievich (born in 1906), American economist. Born in Russia, since 1931 in the USA. Developed a method of economic and mathematical analysis "costs of output" to study intersectoral relations, the structure of the economy and ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
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Remark 1
Vasily Vasilievich Leontiev (1905 - 1999) - American economist of Russian origin, Nobel laureate.
According to some sources, Vasily Leontiev was born in Petrograd, according to others - in Munich in the family of an economics professor.
Leontiev studied at home under the supervision of his mother, who was a certified teacher, and student tutors. At the age of thirteen, he entered the senior classes of the unified labor school and graduated from them two years later, having received the right to enter a higher educational institution.
By the age of 15, the future scientist had mastered several European languages.
In 1928, Leontiev was officially invited to China for the post of adviser to the Minister of Railways. He was given the task of calculating the optimal transport system for China.
In 1931, Leontiev moved to America, becoming an employee of the National Bureau economic research. Subsequently, he worked as a lecturer at Harvard and New York Universities, created and headed the American Institute for Economic Analysis, worked as a consultant to the UN.
In 1932, Leontiev married an American citizen and the following year he himself received American citizenship.
During the war, Leontief advised the US Air Force on economic planning.
In 1954, the scientist became president of the Econometric Society, and in 1970 - of the American Economic Association.
In 1988, Leontiev was offered assistance to the USSR in Perestroika, but the country's leadership rejected the offer. Despite this, in the same year, the scientist became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In the early 1990s, Leontiev visited Russian Federation. Upon arrival in America, he noted that he would not return to Russia, because they did not listen to him there. He kept his promise.
Remark 2
Leontiev is the creator of the theory of intersectoral analysis. In 1973 he received the Nobel Prize in Economics "for his development of the input-output method and its application to important economic problems." In honor of the scientist, economic phenomena are named - Leontiev's model and paradox.
For these discoveries, Leontiev is called the "apostle of planning."
Leontiev's economic thinking was backed up by a strong mathematical ability. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the scientist conducted original studies on the elasticity of supply and demand, the statistical measurement of industrial concentration, and the use of indifference curves to explain some patterns of international trade. This work put him in the front ranks of the economists of that time.
Leontiev was an empiricist and an opponent of "blind theorizing" - he believed that theory must necessarily be supported by practice. In his opinion, economic concepts are meaningless and can even be misleading if the relevant processes cannot be evaluated in practice.
Leontiev considered economics as an applied science, the benefits of which depend on its applicability in real life. The collection of facts, according to him, is a more complex process that requires more labor and time. In this regard, he noted that in real life there is an excess of theoretical models and a lack of practical data and facts that support theoretical reasoning.
Russian economist, studied at the Leningrad and Berlin Universities. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1973 "for his development of the input-output method and its application to the solution of important economic problems."
“Then what prompted you to emigrate?
Vasily Leontiev (hereinafter - VL). The censor banned my article from publication.
Only because of this?
V.L. But it was a very important event for me and explained a lot to me. I will tell now. As a student, I did a lot of work in the Public Library, studied the works of economists of the 17th and 18th centuries in primary sources. At that time no one but me took these books; maybe that's why the director of the library, Ernest Nikolaevich Radlov, a very deep, interesting person, an idealist philosopher, drew attention to me. He talked to me about the topic of my research and offered to write an article, which he submitted for publication to the journal Annaly to Academician Tarle. It was there that the censor banned it.
But why? What was "criminal" about her?
V.L. That's the thing, nothing. It was an article about the ways of development of science, about casual and normative approaches in it. I have considered the development of these two methods among philosophers since the eighteenth century, through Kant and Hegel, and ending Bergson. It was a historical and analytical article, terribly far from politics, from ideology. And even if it was banned... I realized that it would be impossible to do science here.
Well, maybe, and partly possible, but there will be no normal working conditions. My work is the most important thing in my life. When I understood all this, I decided to leave.
But how did you do it? Leaving Russia at the beginning of 1925 was not an easy task. There was no "Iron Curtain" yet, but the border was already firmly locked.
V.L. You're right, it was almost impossible. But I got lucky. I got sick, I had a tumor on my jaw. Doctors performed an operation, removed part of the bone and decided that it was a sarcoma. Then I asked to be given a passport. And they gave me a passport. We decided - let him go, he will die soon anyway. When I was leaving, the doctor gave me a jar with the bone removed. And when I went to the doctors in Germany, they examined it and said that it was not a sarcoma, and I remained alive. So sarcoma helped me a lot. Agree, it does not help many people ... "
Kalyandina S.A., V.V. Leontiev and the repressions of the 1920s (interview with V.V. Leontiev), in Sat: Repressed Science / Ed. M.G. Yaroshevsky, Issue II, St. Petersburg, "Nauka", 1994, p. 190.
Since 1931 Vasily Leontiev works in the USA. He developed a multidimensional method of economic and mathematical analysis "costs - output" (input - output) to study intersectoral economic relations.
"Trouble modern economy in that, thought Vasily Leontiev that "many of his colleagues pay homage to elegant but useless theorizing." In his presidential address to the Detroit Economic Association, he announced that “The vice of the modern economy is not indifference to practical problems, as many practitioners believed, but complete unsuitability scientific methods with which they are trying to solve. And, perhaps, we will add, the most striking example of this unsuitability is the inability of economists to foresee the economic collapse of communism, at least five years in advance, at least in 1985. They foresaw the little things, but did not notice the main thing - the impossibility of existence social order, which seemed to them quite combat-ready. Some prophets, who correctly predicted the death of communism in 20-25 years (for example, the Soviet historian Andrei Amalrik or David Sarnov), reasoned purely intuitively and were mistaken in the symptoms of this death (for example, Amalrik saw a war between the USSR and China). It is now clear that the economic reason lay in the inefficiency of production; all ties went to the production of ties and did not enter the market - it was impossible to buy a tie, even with money ... "
Mark Reitman, Famous emigrants from Russia. Essays on Russians who have achieved success in the USA, Rostov-on-Don, "Phoenix", 1999, p. 60.
Source of information: Vasily Leontiev, Andrey Anikin, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Chief Researcher at IMEMO, specially for the Kommersant Dengi magazine, Kommersant Dengi, 1999, N 6.
Leontiev turned out to be a man of average height, with an appearance in which there was nothing catchy. His Russian speech was correct and clear, "intelligent Petersburg". Only occasionally did expressions and intonations sound that betrayed a person who had been cut off from the living element of language for a long time. Sometimes he found it difficult, choosing Russian terms for new scientific concepts that had developed in the English language. The audience liked Leontiev extremely. I liked his natural modesty, naturalness, soft irony. Special mention should be made of this irony, which was characteristic of him until the end of his life. Despite the seriousness of his speeches and conversations, from time to time there was a feeling that he was making fun of himself, of the audience, of science itself. In addition, it was a born popularizer. Although it was about rather complex matters, no one was ever bored: Leontiev was surprisingly able to find simple and capacious words.
His father, a professor of economics in St. Petersburg, was also called Vasily. Leontiev really liked it when everyone began to address him by his first name and patronymic: Vasily Vasilyevich. After the lecture, Leontiev found himself surrounded by a dense ring of economists who wanted to talk to him again, to ask some question that they did not have time or did not dare to ask publicly. The director of the institute had to persuade the crowd to disperse so that the lecturer could rest.
Wassily Leontief was born on August 5, 1906 in St. Petersburg. At the age of 19 he graduated from Leningrad University with a degree in economics. He spoke very warmly about his Soviet education both publicly and in private. The relatively liberal environment of the first half of the 1920s allowed him to go abroad in 1925 to complete his education. In Berlin, he received a doctorate in economics, worked briefly at the Institute of World Economy in Kiel, and was an economic adviser in China for about a year. And in 1931, Leontiev left for the United States and a few years later became an American citizen.
By this time, the young scientist had a good reputation and was the author of several notable articles. His scientific appearance was also determined: he was looking for ways to connect economic theory with statistics and mathematics. Soon he was destined to become one of the founders of econometrics - a direction in economic science that focuses on measuring economic quantities, on quantitative analysis.
It is a pity, of course, for our Russia, which abundantly gives birth to talents and loses them so easily. On the other hand, could Leontiev have made his universally significant contribution to science if he had remained in the USSR? Perhaps we should be grateful to America for giving shelter to this man and providing the conditions for the flowering of his talent.
Since 1932, Leontief taught economics at the prestigious Harvard University - an excellent academic environment and an age-old tradition of liberalism. Although teaching took a lot of effort and time, he almost immediately began his pioneering research, which, 40 years later, brought him the Nobel Prize. Based on the ideas of his predecessors, Leontiev created new way macroeconomic analysis - the input-output method, which is sometimes called the input-output balance. Although the basic idea is quite simple and attempts to apply such calculations were made in the Soviet planning authorities as early as the 1920s, it was Leontiev who turned the idea into a system and created the necessary mathematical apparatus. As a result, the input-output method has become the most important forecasting and planning tool. National economy. Planning is not administrative and strong-willed, but scientifically substantiated and therefore optimal.
The first results of his work appeared in print in 1936, and in 1941 a book was published in which the possibilities of his method for analyzing the economy were first demonstrated. big country, in this case the US. Soon, the Leontief method was used to study structural changes during the transition from a war economy to a peaceful one.
Leontiev also showed himself to be an outstanding organizer of science. In 1948, he created the Harvard Center for Economic Research, which he directed for more than a quarter of a century. A group of like-minded scientists, his assistants and co-authors formed around him. Others themselves have become outstanding explorers.
But in 1975, Leontiev left Harvard and moved to New York, where he organized the Institute for Economic Analysis at New York University. Even in old age, he retained an amazing capacity for work and creative energy. Leontiev led a huge UN project based on his method to study the state and prospects of the world economy. The task was as follows: to estimate the needs for the main types of raw materials for the period up to the year 2000, to determine the likely flows of world trade and financial resources, outline economic ties between the main regions. The results of this study were published everywhere, including in the USSR.
Russia was by no means a foreign country for Vasily Vasilyevich. He regularly came to us, followed the Russian publications of his work, and corresponded with Russian scientists. In St. Petersburg, he was present at the establishment of the Leontief Center, which organizes scientific research in the field of economics.
By the end of the seventies, Leontiev was already considered a patriarch, an elder of world economic science. In 1990, when economics celebrated the 200th anniversary of the death of Adam Smith, eight Nobel laureates gathered in Edinburgh, where the "father of economics" is buried, of whom the youngest was under seventy. Leontiev was, it seems, the oldest. But he was lively, active, sociable. Participated not only in scientific meetings, but also in banquets, conversations, excursions.
During these years, Leontiev wrote and spoke a lot about the fate of Russia. He compared the economy to a caravel, whose sails are blown by the wind of private interest and initiative, and whose rudder is state regulation. The Soviet economy had no sails - and this was the main reason for its inefficiency. However, Leontiev added, one cannot rely only on the wind and sails, leaving the rudder alone. It is only necessary to use this steering wheel correctly and not turn it at random. It seems that these wise thoughts are not at all outdated. In the autumn of 1992, specialists in Groningen (Netherlands) gathered transition economies of Eastern Europe and their relationship with the West. Leontiev was invited as a kind of honorary chairman, a "key speaker" who was called upon to set the tone for the entire conference. He coped with this difficult task perfectly, once again striking the listeners with his intelligence, humor, and sobriety of judgment. At the closing banquet, he delighted everyone with a lengthy toast. It was very hard to believe that this man was born 8 years before the First World War.
Leontiev said that he was unable to follow all the events in former USSR and in Eastern Europe, but that the situation worries him very much. Do the people in power in Moscow, Kyiv, Warsaw and Prague imagine what kind of society and what kind of economy they want to build on the ruins of communism and universal centralization? Sometimes it seems that they want capitalism, which no longer exists in the West. But Western experts are also mistaken when they think that the countries of Eastern Europe face a rather simple task, the solution of which is known from textbooks of macroeconomics. These are the words of an internationally recognized economist!
Aircraft designer Sikorsky and chemist Chichiba-bin, physicist Gamov and sociologist Sorokin are on the pedestal of world science. The economist Leontiev rightfully occupies an honorable place in this list. The authoritative international Encyclopedia of Social Sciences considers his contribution to economics comparable to the one brought into it by Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. It is difficult to give a higher assessment: after all, they, in turn, can be called Newton and Einstein of economic science.
Economics was not among the sciences to which Nobel left his millions. But since 1969, prizes named after him have also been awarded to economists. Leontiev became a laureate in 1973. By this time, another talented native of Russia, the American Simon Kuznets, had already received the award. Two years after Leontiev, the Soviet academician Leonid Kantorovich became a Nobel laureate. It is characteristic that both Kuznets and Kantorovich blazed new trails in areas of science that were adjacent to Leontiev's interests. Unfortunately, no other worthy representatives of Soviet and Russian economic science have yet been found.
