Vernon Wesley Ruttan

Vernon Wesley Ruttan (* August 16, 1924, † 18 August 2008) was an American economist. He was especially a respected and influential development and agricultural economist and has published over 200 books, scientific articles and reports.

Life

Ruttan grew up on a farm in Alden (Michigan). He attended Michigan State University (1942-1943) and received a bachelor's degree from Yale University ( 1948). A master ( 1950) and a Ph.D. (1952 ) he received from the University of Chicago. After several years with the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1955 he became a professor at Purdue University. From 1965 until his death he taught at the University of Minnesota.

From 1961 to 1963, Ruttan member of the Council of Economic Advisers of the U.S. government. Between 1963 and 1965 he worked as an agricultural economist at IRRI in the Philippines from 1973 to 1978 as president of the Agricultural Development Council. As a consultant, he worked among others for the USAID (1968-1973 and 1980-1986), the CGIAR (1973-1978) and the IFPRI ( 1980-1986 ).

Work

Ruttan mainly dealt with the development and technological progress in agriculture and its importance to the economic growth of developing countries.

His most famous scientific contribution, together with the Japanese economists Yujiro Hayami, was the transfer of the theory of induced innovation in agricultural technologies. Thus, the relative scarcity of the factor land in Japan for the development and rapid diffusion area of high-yield varieties have performed. In the United States, however, work was the relatively scarce factor, which is why labor-saving machinery prevailed faster.

Awards

August 18 International Rice Research Institute Land (economics) Humboldt Prize Integrated Authority File
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