Jan Salomon (Mars) Cramer (28 April 1928 – 15 March 2014) was a Dutch economist, Professor of

Statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

and

Econometrics Econometrics is the application of Statistics, statistical methods to economic data in order to give Empirical evidence, empirical content to economic relationships.M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," ''The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of ...

at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

, known for his work of empirical econometrics.

Biography

Born in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, Mars Cramer was the son of biologist and Professor P. J. S. Cramer (1879–1952) He received his PhD in Mathematics in 1961 at the

with a thesis entitled "A Statistical Model of the Ownership of Major Consumer Durables with an Application to some Findings of the 1953 Oxford Savings Survey" under supervision of . In the 1950s Cramer started his career as researcher for the

Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis The Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis ( nl, Centraal Planbureau, CPB, literal translation: Central Planning Bureau) is a part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy of the Netherlands. Its goal is to deliver economic analysis and ...

. After graduation in 1961 at the University of Amsterdam he was appointed Professor of

, a newly established chair. He was Director of the

SEO Economic Research SEO Amsterdam Economics'' (SEO) is a scientific institute for economic research commissioned by ministries or businesses. SEO was founded in 1949 from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abb ...

from 1985 to 1992 as successor of

Wim Driehuis Wim Driehuis (born 22 June 1943) is a Dutch economist, Emeritus Professor Economics and Business at the University of Amsterdam. Biography Born in Utrecht Driehuis received his BA in Economics in 1963 and his MA in Economics in 1967 both at th ...

. Among his doctoral students were Arnold Merkies (1972), Geert Ridder (1987) and Mirjam van Praag (2005). In 1980 Cramer was elected member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

, and later Fellow of the

Tinbergen Institute The Tinbergen Institute is a joint institute for research and education in economics, econometrics and finance of the VU University Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, and the Erasmus University Rotterdam. The institute was founded in 1987 an ...

. Cramer died on 15 March 2014 in Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam's Faculty of Economics and Business (2014) recalled that "Mars was known for his originality and his wit. He possessed a genuine academic curiosity and a rather characteristic style of writing. For example, his research into the velocity of money led him to study the velocity of particular coins. As a student he served as editor of the literary student periodical Propria Cures, and he continued to intermittently publish short stories and opinion pieces. In 2012, the ''

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'' published his moving account of his wife Til’s euthanasia four years earlier." Cramer "continued working on new research projects and contributing to the supervision of students until the very last day before his passing."Faculty of Economics and Business.
In memoriam: Mars Cramer
" on ''uva.nl, 19 March 2014.'' Accessed 2015-02-18

Publications

Cramer authored and co-authored numerous publications in the field of econometrics.List of publications
at National Library of the Netherlands. Books, a selection: * 1958. ''Economic forecasts and policy''. With

Henri Theil Henri (Hans) Theil (October 13, 1924 – August 20, 2000) was a Dutch econometrician and professor at the Netherlands School of Economics in Rotterdam, known for his contributions to the field of econometrics. Biography Born in Amsterdam, The ...

assisted by J.S. Cramer, H. Moerman, and A. Russchen. * 1961. ''A Statistical Model of the Ownership of Major Consumer Durables with an Application to some Findings of the 1953 Oxford Savings Survey''. * 1969. ''Empirical econometrics''. Amsterdam : North-Holland Pub. Co. * 1991. ''The logit model: an introduction for economists''. London: Edward Arnold. * 2003. ''Logit models from economics and other fields''. Cambridge University Press, 2003. Articles, a selection: * * * *

References

External links

In memoriam: Mars Cramer
on ''uva.nl'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Cramer, Mars 1928 births 2014 deaths Dutch economists Dutch mathematicians Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences University of Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam Writers from The Hague Fellows of the Econometric Society