Tjalling Charles Koopmans (August 28, 1910 – February 26, 1985) was a Dutch-American mathematician and economist. He was the joint winner with Leonid Kantorovich 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 (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...

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 , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. He began his university education at the

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public university, public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of ...

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 1903 – 9 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 ana ...

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

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

to study

mathematical economics Mathematical economics is the application of Mathematics, mathematical methods to represent theories and analyze problems in economics. Often, these Applied mathematics#Economics, applied methods are beyond simple geometry, and may include diff ...

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

econometrics Econometrics is an application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics", '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

and

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

. In 1936, he graduated from

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

with a PhD, under the direction of Hendrik Kramers. The title of the thesis was "Linear regression analysis of economic time series". He also worked for the Economic and Financial Organization of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

. Koopmans moved to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in 1940. There, he worked for a while for a government body in Washington, D.C., where he published on the economics of transportation focusing on optimal routing, then moved to

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

where he joined a research body, the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics, affiliated with the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. In 1946, he became a naturalized citizen of the

, and in 1948, director of the Cowles Commission. Also in 1948, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. In 1950, he became a corresponding member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. 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 university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1955 (where it was renamed the Cowles Foundation). He continued to publish, on the

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

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 afte ...

, 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, and their relationship to

economic efficiency In microeconomics, economic efficiency, depending on the context, is usually one of the following two related concepts: * Allocative or Pareto efficiency: any changes made to assist one person would harm another. * Productive efficiency: no addit ...

and prices. 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 ( ; ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, in ...

, 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 ...

by John Denis Sargan 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 Schoo ...

(Sargan and Bhargava, 1983).

Family and name

Tjalling Charles Koopmans was a son of Sjoerd Koopmans and Wytske van der Zee; his middle name 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 (more specifically an avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. It is the male equivalent of a matronymic. Patronymics are used, b ...

"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. Tjalling Koopmans and Simon van der Meer were therefore first cousins once removed. Tjalling had two brothers, one of whom was

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

Rev. Dr Jan Koopmans, who in 1940, early during the German occupation of the Netherlands, 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. Koopmans married Truus Wanningen in October 1936. The couple had three children - a son, Henry, and two daughters, Anne and Helen.

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 American econometricians Time series econometricians General equilibrium theorists American 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