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Samuelson, Paul A. (Paul Anthony)

US economist. His major works include Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) and Economics (1948). In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics for contributions to every branch of economics.

Samuelson's brilliant doctoral dissertation at Harvard University, Foundations of Economic Analysis, completed in 1941 but not published until 1947, was a milestone in the conversion of modern economists to the view that all economic behaviour can be fruitfully studied as the solution to a maximization problem explicitly or implicitly employing the mathematics of differential and integral calculus. As if that were not enough, his elementary textbook Economics was a major factor in the Keynesian conquest of economics departments in the years after World War II. In the same way, Linear Programming and Economic Activity (1958; with R Dorfman and R Solow) played a significant role in disseminating the new wartime techniques of mathematical optimization, which had grown up alongside Keynesian economics.

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REFERENCES

  • Arrow, Kenneth J., “Samuelson Collected”, Journal of Political Economy, 75/5 (1967): 730-37.
  • Beaud, Michel; Gilles Dostaler, entry on Samuelson in Economic Thought since Keynes: A History and Dictionary of Major Economists, Aldershot, Hampshire: Elgar, 1995.
  • Blaug, Mark, entry on Paul Anthony Samuelson in Great Economists since Keynes: An Introduction to the Lives and Works of One Hundred Modern Economists, 2nd edition, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire: Elgar, 1998.
  • Breit, William; Roger L. Ransom, “Paul A. Samuelson: From Economic Wunderkind to Policy Maker” in their The Academic Scribblers, 3rd edition, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1998.
  • Crowley, Kate (editor), The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson, vol. 5, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1986.
See more references from Credo

From Credo

  • Elzinga, Kenneth G., “The Eleven Principles of Economics”, Southern Economic Journal, 58/4 (1992): 861-79.
  • Feiwel, George R. (editor), Samuelson and Neoclassical Economics, Boston: Kluwer, 1982.
  • Kendry, Adrian, “Paul Samuelson” in Twelve Contemporary Economists, edited by J. R. Shackleton; Gareth Locksley, London: Macmillan, and New York: Wiley, 1981.
  • Lindbeck, Assar, “Paul Anthony Samuelson's Contribution to Economics”, Swedish Journal of Economics, 72 (1970): 341-54.
  • Merton, Robert C. (editor), The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson, vol. 3, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1972.
  • Nagatani, Hiroaki; Kate Crowley (editors), The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson, vol. 4, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1977.
  • Samuelson, Paul A., “Paul A. Samuelson” in Lives of the Laureates: Seven Nobel Economists, edited by William Breit; Roger W. Spencer, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1986.
  • Samuelson, Paul A., “My Life Philosophy: Policy Credos and Working Ways” in Eminent Economists: Their Life Philosophies, edited by Szenberg, Michael, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
  • Samuelson, Paul A., “Credo of a Lucky Textbook Author”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 11/2 (1997): 153-60.
  • Stiglitz, Joseph E. (editor), The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson, vols 1-2, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1966.