Simon Kuznets

Simon Smith Kuznets (Russian Семён Абрамович Кузнец, Semyon Abramovich kusnez; * 17 Apriljul / April 30 1901greg in Pinsk, Russian Empire, .. † July 8, 1985 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) was an American economist of Russian-Jewish origin. In 1971 he received the From the Bank of Sweden in memory of Alfred Nobel, donated Prize in Economics.

Life

Kuznets introduced the concept of gross national product and engaged in economic statistics to assess economic performance and economic history. He discovered the 15 - to 20-year economic cycle in the economic growth pattern of industrialized countries.

In 1925/26 Simon Kuznets was a researcher at the Social Science Research Council in New York, 1927-1960 at the National Burneau of Economic Research. From 1931 to 1954 he was professor of Economic Statistics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. After he had until 1960 been a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and until 1971 a professor of Political Economy at Harvard University in Cambridge.

Kuznets analysis of income and consumption

Kuznets examined in 1946 the consumption behavior of U.S. citizens and put Keynes absolute consumption hypothesis in long- term perspective in question. His short-term analysis was based on a cross-sectional analysis across income classes during a business cycle. The results here confirmed Keynes hypothesis that with increasing income decreases the consumption ratio, ie additionally earned money is used only partly for consumption.

His long-term research was based on a period of 30 years and contradicted Keynes, who ran short and long term by increasing consumption with increasing income. Kuznets calculated as income grows a constant average consumption, ie according to Kuznets, the consumption rate decreases with higher income, additional income is exclusively saved. This hypothesis Kuznets is highly controversial among economists.

Works

• Secular movements in production and prices, 1930
• Nature and significance of the trend. On the theory of säularen movement, with a foreword by Eugen Altschul, K. Schroeder, Bonn 1930
• Shares of Upper Income Groups in Income and Savings, National Bureau of Economic Research, New York 1950
• Capital in the American Economy: Its Formation and Financing, 1961
• Modern economic growth, 1966