Abba P. Lerner

Abba P. Lerner ( Abba Lerner Ptachya; born October 28, 1903 in Bessarabia, † October 27, 1982 in Tallahassee, Florida) was an American economist.

Life

Lerner's family emigrated in 1912, first to London, where he was educated and economically. He had, amongst others, contact with John Maynard Keynes. He moved in 1937 to the USA.

Work

Lerner developed as well as Oskar Lange, a model of competitive socialism, which differed from the pure command economy. It was also known as a third way. As Wassily Leontief improved learner calculations Wilhelm Launhardts to terms-of- trade effect. Lerner also improved a formula Alfred Marshall, which has since been known as the Marshall - Lerner condition and Lerner goes back to the Lerner - Samuelson theorem. In addition, the Lerner index, an indicator for determining the degree of a market monopoly, named after him.