Wassily Leontief

Facts

Wassily Leontief

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Wassily Wassilyevich Leontief
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1973

Born: 5 August 1906, St. Petersburg, Russia

Died: 5 February 1999, New York, NY, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Prize motivation: “for the development of the input-output method and for its application to important economic problems”

Prize share: 1/1

Life

Wassily Leontief was a student at the University of Leningrad (1921-25) and the University of Berlin. He immigrated to the United States in 1931, teaching at Harvard University where he became a professor in 1964. He set up the Harvard Economic Research Project in 1948 and remained its director until 1973. Leontief married poet Estelle Marks in 1932 with whom he shared one daughter.

Work

Wassily Leontief created the input-output analysis, which describes the interdependence in the production system as a network of deliveries between the various sectors of production. The method provided tools for a systematic analysis of the complicated interindustrial transactions in an economy. Leontieff is also distinguished for having developed linear programming, a mathematical technique for solving complex problems of economic operations.

To cite this section
MLA style: Wassily Leontief – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Wed. 11 Dec 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1973/leontief/facts/>

Back to top Back To Top Takes users back to the top of the page

Streams during Nobel Week

Watch the 2024 Nobel Prize lectures, Nobel Week Dialogue, the prize award ceremonies in Oslo and Stockholm and Nobel Peace Prize Forum here at nobelprize.org.

Watch lectures and award ceremonies

Explore prizes and laureates

Look for popular awards and laureates in different fields, and discover the history of the Nobel Prize.