Kenneth Arrow

An American neoclassical economist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics along with John Hicks in 1972 for his contributions to general equilibrium analysis and welfare economics. Arrow’s research has also explored social choice theory, endogenous growth theory, collective decision making, the economics of information and the economics of racial discrimination, among other topics.

Born in New York City in 1921, Arrow has taught at Stanford University, Harvard and the University of Chicago. Arrow earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University, with a dissertation that discussed his impossibility theorem. He later published a book on the same subject. Arrow is also known as one of the first economists to recognize the learning curve.