Max Otto Lorenz (; September 19, 1876 – July 1, 1959) was an American

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

who developed the

Lorenz curve In economics, the Lorenz curve is a graphical representation of the distribution of income or of wealth. It was developed by Max O. Lorenz in 1905 for representing Economic inequality, inequality of the wealth distribution. The curve is a graph o ...

in an undergraduate essay. He published a paper on this when he was a doctoral student at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

. His doctoral thesis (1906) was on 'The Economic Theory of Railroad Rates' and made no reference to perhaps his most famous paper. The term "

" for the measure Lorenz invented was coined by

Willford I. King Willford Isbell King (June 2, 1880 – October 17, 1962) was an American statistician, economist, and chairman of the Committee for Constitutional Government, Inc. Biography King was born in Cascade, Iowa on June 2, 1880. King received his educ ...

in 1912. He was of German ancestry, his father having been born in

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

in the

Rhine Province The Rhine Province (german: Rheinprovinz), also known as Rhenish Prussia () or synonymous with the Rhineland (), was the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, from 1822 to 1946. It ...

of the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Re ...

in 1841. He was active in both publishing and teaching and was at various times employed by the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Railway Economics, the U.S.

Bureau of Statistics The following is a list of national and international statistical services. Central national statistical services Nearly every country in the world has set a central public sector unit entirely devoted to the production, harmonisation and dissemin ...

and the U.S.

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

. In 1917 he was elected as a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the American Statistical Association.List of ASA Fellows
retrieved 2016-07-16. He was married to Nellie, and fathered three sons.

External links

* Lorenz, M. O. (1905). ''Methods of measuring the concentration of wealth'' Publications of the American Statistical Association. Vol. 9 (New Series, No. 70) 209–219. * Richard T. Ely, Adams, Thomas A. Adams, Max O. Lorenz, and Allyn Young (1908). ''Outlines of Economics''. New York: Macmillan. * King, W.I. (1912). ''The Elements of Statistical Method''. New York: Macmillan. * A discussion of generalised Lorenz curves

* Some history of economists from the

school around John R. Commons

* *

References

1876 births 1959 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni University of Iowa alumni Fellows of the American Statistical Association People from Sunnyvale, California American people of German descent Economists from California People from Burlington, Iowa Economists from Iowa {{US-economist-stub