Willem Hendrik Somermeyer (19 April 1919 – 30 May 1982) was a Dutch

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 ...

, Professor in Econometrics at the

Erasmus University Rotterdam Erasmus University Rotterdam ( ; abbreviated as EUR) is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century Christian humanist and theologian. Erasmus M ...

, and member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

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 ...

(1983)
Levensbericht W.H. Somermeyer
in: ''Jaarboek, 1983'', Amsterdam, pp. 178-181 particularly known for his consumption-savings model.

Biography

Born in

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

, Somermeyer started to study at the

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

late 1930s. After one year he shifted to study law at the

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 ...

. Later in 1965 he received his PhD from

at the

for his study of

income inequality In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes ...

conducted at the

Statistics Netherlands Statistics Netherlands, founded in 1899, is a Dutch governmental institution that gathers statistical information about the Netherlands. In Dutch it is known as the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (''Central Agency for Statistics''), often a ...

entitled "Inkomensongelijkheid: een analyse van spreiding en scheefheid van inkomensverdelingen in Nederland." Somermeyer started his career at the Netherlands Court of Audit, worked three year for the Bureau Documentatie Bouwwezen, and from 1942 to 1946 for the

under

. From 1953 to 1965 he worked again for the

. In 1965 he was appointed Associate Professor and in 1967 Professor at the Nederlandse Economische Hogeschool, in 1973 renamed

. From 1971 to 1982 he was also director of the

Econometric Institute Econometric Institute (Dutch ''Econometrisch Instituut'') at the Erasmus University Rotterdam is a leading research institute in the fields of econometrics and management science in the Netherlands. The Institute offers advanced education in econom ...

as successor of

Jan Sandee Jan Sandee (9 December 1919 in Rotterdam – 21 July 2011 in Boskoop) was a Dutch economist, consultant and Professor of Econometrics at the Netherlands School of Economics, Rotterdam, who headed the Econometric Institute from 1966 to 1971. Sand ...

and succeeded by Alexander Rinnooy Kan and

Teun Kloek Teunis (Teun) Kloek (born 1934) is a Dutch economist and Emeritus Professor of Econometrics at the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. His research interests centered on econometric methods and their applications, especially nonparametric and robust ...

. His doctoral students were P.E. van der Dussen (1970), J. van Daal (1974), Guus Holtgrefe (1975), J. Blokland (1976), Wouter J. Keller (1979)Theses EUR department of econometrics 1970-1979
/ref> and P.M.C. de Boer (1981).

Publications

Books, a selection: * 1965. ''Inkomensongelijkheid: een analyse van spreiding en scheefheid van inkomensverdelingen in Nederland''. De Haan. * 1973. ''A consumption-savings model and its applications. Contributions to economic analysis Volume 79''. With Robert Bannink. North-Holland. Articles, a selection: * Nykamp, P., and Willem Hendrik Somermeyer. "Explicating lmplicit social preference functions." Economics of Planning 11.3 (1971): 101-119. * Somermeyer, Willem Hendrik, and A. Langhout. "Shapes of Engel curves and demand curves: implications of the expenditure allocation model, applied to Dutch data." European Economic Review 3.3 (1972): 351-386. * Somermeyer, Willem Hendrik. "Multi-polar human flow models." Papers in Regional Science 26.1 (1971): 131-144. * Blokland, Johannes, and W. H. Somermeyer. Continuous consumer equivalence scales: item-specific effects of age and sex of household members in the budget allocation model. Nijhoff, 1976.

References

External links

Willem Hendrik Somermeyer
at ''biografischportaal.nl'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Somermeyer, Willem 1919 births 1982 deaths Dutch econometricians Delft University of Technology alumni Leiden University alumni Academic staff of Erasmus University Rotterdam Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Writers from Utrecht (city) 20th-century Dutch economists