Tjalling Charles Koopmans (August 28, 1910 – February 26, 1985) was a

Dutch-American Dutch Americans ( nl, Nederlandse Amerikanen) are Americans of Dutch descent whose ancestors came from the Netherlands in the recent or distant past. Dutch settlement in the Americas started in 1613 with New Amsterdam, which was exchanged with ...

mathematician and economist. He was the joint winner with

Leonid Kantorovich Leonid Vitalyevich Kantorovich ( rus, Леони́д Вита́льевич Канторо́вич, , p=lʲɪɐˈnʲit vʲɪˈtalʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kəntɐˈrovʲɪtɕ, a=Ru-Leonid_Vitaliyevich_Kantorovich.ogg; 19 January 19127 April 1986) was a Sovie ...

of the 1975

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

for his work on the theory of the optimum allocation of resources. Koopmans showed that on the basis of certain efficiency criteria, it is possible to make important deductions concerning optimum price systems.

Biography

Koopmans was born in 's-Graveland,

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. He began his university education at the

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

at seventeen, specializing in mathematics. Three years later, in 1930, he switched to theoretical physics. In 1933, he met

Jan Tinbergen Jan Tinbergen (; ; 12 April 19039 June 1994) was a Dutch economist who was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis o ...

, the winner of the 1969 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, and moved to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

to study mathematical economics under him. In addition to mathematical economics, Koopmans extended his explorations to

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 ...

and

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 ...

. In 1936 he graduated from

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

with a PhD, under the direction of

Hendrik Kramers Hendrik Anthony "Hans" Kramers (17 December 1894 – 24 April 1952) was a Dutch physicist who worked with Niels Bohr to understand how electromagnetic waves interact with matter and made important contributions to quantum mechanics and statistical ...

. The title of the thesis was "Linear regression analysis of economic time series". Koopmans moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1940. There he worked for a while for a government body in

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

, where he published on the

economics of transportation Transport economics is a branch of economics founded in 1959 by American economist John R. Meyer that deals with the allocation of resources within the transport sector. It has strong links to civil engineering. Transport economics differs from ...

focusing on optimal routing, then moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

where he joined a research body, the

Cowles Commission for Research in Economics The Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics is an economic research institute at Yale University. It was created as the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics at Colorado Springs in 1932 by businessman and economist Alfred Cowles. In 193 ...

, affiliated with the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. In 1946, he became a

naturalized citizen Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

of the

and in 1948 director of the Cowles Commission. Also in 1948, he was elected as a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

. In 1950 he became a corresponding 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 ...

. Rising hostile opposition to the Cowles Commission by the department of economics at University of Chicago during the 1950s led Koopmans to convince the Cowles family to move it to

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1955 (where it was renamed the

Cowles Foundation The Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics is an economic research institute at Yale University. It was created as the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics at Colorado Springs in 1932 by businessman and economist Alfred Cowles. In 1939 ...

). He continued to publish, on the

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

of optimal growth and activity analysis. Koopmans's early works on the Hartree–Fock theory are associated with the

Koopmans' theorem Koopmans' theorem states that in closed-shell Hartree–Fock theory (HF), the first ionization energy of a molecular system is equal to the negative of the orbital energy of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO). This theorem is named aft ...

, which is very well known in

quantum chemistry Quantum chemistry, also called molecular quantum mechanics, is a branch of physical chemistry focused on the application of quantum mechanics to chemical systems, particularly towards the quantum-mechanical calculation of electronic contributions ...

. Koopmans was awarded his Nobel memorial prize (jointly with Leonid Kantorovich) for his contributions to the field of resource allocation, specifically the theory of optimal use of resources. The work for which the prize was awarded focused on activity analysis, the study of interactions between the inputs and outputs of

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

, and their relationship to economic efficiency and

prices A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the c ...

. Finally, the importance of the article by Koopmans (1942) deriving the distribution of the serial correlation coefficient was recognized by

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...

, and it later influenced the optimal tests for a

unit root In probability theory and statistics, a unit root is a feature of some stochastic processes (such as random walks) that can cause problems in statistical inference involving time series models. A linear stochastic process has a unit root if 1 is ...

John Denis Sargan John Denis Sargan, FBA (23 August 1924 – 13 April 1996) was a British econometrician who specialized in the analysis of economic time-series. Sargan was born in Doncaster, Yorkshire in 1924, and was educated at Doncaster Grammar School and ...

and

Alok Bhargava Alok Bhargava (born 13 July 1954) is an Indian econometrician. He studied mathematics at Delhi University and economics and econometrics at the London School of Economics. He is currently a full professor at the University of Maryland School ...

(Sargan and Bhargava, 1983).

Family and name

Tjalling Charles Koopmans was a son of Sjoerd Koopmans and Wytske van der Zee; his

middle name In various cultures, a middle name is a portion of a personal name that is written between the person's first given name and their surname. A middle name is often abbreviated and is then called middle initial or just initial. A person may be ...

Charles was probably derived from his

patronymic A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...

"Sjoerds". One of Sjoerd Koopmans's sisters, Gatske Koopmans, and her husband Symon van der Meer were the paternal grandparents of Nobel Prize winner

Simon van der Meer Simon van der Meer (24 November 19254 March 2011) was a Dutch particle accelerator physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 with Carlo Rubbia for contributions to the CERN project which led to the discovery of the W and Z part ...

. Tjalling Koopmans and Simon van der Meer were therefore

first cousins once removed Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...

. Tjalling had two brothers, one of whom was

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

Rev. Dr Jan Koopmans, who in 1940, early during the

German occupation of the Netherlands Despite Dutch neutrality, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as part of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family re ...

, wrote the widely distributed pamphlet "''Bijna te laat''" ("''Almost too late''", 30,000 copies), warning about the future of the Jews under the Nazi regime. In 1945, towards the end of the war, he witnessed an execution of hostages in

from behind a window and was mortally wounded by a stray bullet.

Selected works

* * Cowles Foundation Paper No. 357. * *

References

External links

* * Scarf, Herbert E.
"Tjalling Charles Koopmans: August 28, 1910 – February 26, 1985"
''National Academy of Science''

* *
Biography of Tjalling Koopmans
from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
Tjalling Charles Koopmans Papers (MS 1439).
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Koopmans, Tjalling 1910 births 1985 deaths People from Wijdemeren Dutch Nobel laureates Dutch economists Dutch emigrants to the United States Utrecht University alumni University of Amsterdam alumni Nobel laureates in Economics Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Econometric Society Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Presidents of the Econometric Society Mathematical economists Econometricians Time series econometricians General equilibrium theorists Operations researchers 20th-century American writers 20th-century American economists 20th-century American mathematicians Presidents of the American Economic Association Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Dutch mathematicians

Biography

Family and name

Selected works

Further reading

See also

References

External links