Tjalling Koopmans

Tjalling Charles Koopmans (August 28,

Tjalling C. Koopmans
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 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. He began his university
education at the Utrecht University at
seventeen, specializing in mathematics. Born August 28, 1910
Three years later, in 1930, he switched to 's-Graveland, Netherlands
theoretical physics. In 1933, he met Jan Died February 26, 1985 (aged 74)
Tinbergen, the winner of the 1969 Nobel New Haven, Connecticut, US
Memorial Prize in Economics, and moved
to Amsterdam to study mathematical Nationality Dutch, American
economics under him. In addition to Alma mater University of Utrecht
mathematical economics, Koopmans University of Leiden
extended his explorations to econometrics
Known for Transport economics
and statistics. In 1936 he graduated from
Hitchcock–Koopmans transportation problem
Leiden University with a PhD, under the
direction of Hendrik Kramers. The title of Ramsey–Cass–Koopmans model
the thesis was "Linear regression analysis of Koopmans' theorem
economic time series".[1] He also worked Awards Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
for the Economic and Financial (1975)
Organization of the League of
[2]: 
2 8  Scientific career
Nations.
Fields Economics, Physics
Koopmans moved to the United States in Doctoral Hans Kramers
1940. There he worked for a while for a
advisor Jan Tinbergen
government body in Washington, D.C.,
where he published on the economics of Doctoral Carl Christ
transportation focusing on optimal routing, students Stanley Reiter
then moved to Chicago where he joined a Rolf Mantel
research body, the Cowles Commission for Guillermo Calvo
Research in Economics, affiliated with the
University of Chicago. In 1946, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States and in 1948 director of
the Cowles Commission. Also in 1948, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical
Association.[3] In 1950 he became a corresponding
member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts
and Sciences.[4] 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 in 1955 (where it was renamed the
Cowles Foundation). He continued to publish, on the
economics of optimal growth and activity analysis.

Koopmans's early works on the Hartree–Fock theory

are associated with the Koopmans' theorem, which is Koopmans (1967)
very well known in quantum chemistry. 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
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, and it later influenced the optimal tests for a
unit root by John Denis Sargan and Alok Bhargava (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 "Sjoerds".[5]

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.[6][7] Tjalling Koopmans and Simon van
der Meer were therefore first cousins once removed.

Tjalling had two brothers, one of whom was theologian 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.[8] In 1945, towards
the end of the war, he witnessed an execution of hostages in Amsterdam from behind a window and was
mortally wounded by a stray bullet.[9][10]

Selected works
Koopmans, Tjalling C. (March 1942). "Serial correlation and quadratic forms in normal
variables" (https://doi.org/10.1214%2Faoms%2F1177731639). Annals of Mathematical
Statistics. Institute of Mathematical Statistics. 13 (1): 14–33. doi:10.1214/aoms/1177731639
(https://doi.org/10.1214%2Faoms%2F1177731639). JSTOR 2236158 (https://www.jstor.org/
stable/2236158).
Koopmans, Tjalling C.; Montias, J.M. (1971). "On the Description and Comparison of
Economic Systems". Cowles Foundation Paper No. 357.
Koopmans, Tjalling C. (December 11, 1975). Nobel Memorial Lecture: Concepts of
optimality and their uses (https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/koopmans-lecture.pd
f) (PDF).
Koopmans, Tjalling C.; Debreu, Gérard (December 1982). "Additively decomposed
quasiconvex functions" (http://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d05/d0574.pdf)
(PDF). Mathematical Programming. Springer. 24 (1): 1–38. doi:10.1007/BF01585092 (https://
 doi.org/10.1007%2FBF01585092). S2CID 206799604 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/Corp
usID:206799604).

Further reading
Hughes Hallett, Andrew J. (1989). "Econometrics and the Theory of Economic Policy: The
Tinbergen–Theil Contributions 40 Years On". Oxford Economic Papers. 41 (1): 189–214.
doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.oep.a041892 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Foxfordjournals.oep.a04
1892). JSTOR 2663189 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2663189).
Sargan, J. D.; Bhargava, Alok (1983). "Testing residuals from least squares regressions for
being generated by the Gaussian random walk". Econometrica. 51 (1): 153–174.
doi:10.2307/1912252 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1912252). JSTOR 1912252 (https://www.j
stor.org/stable/1912252).

See also
Linear programming
Transportation theory (mathematics)

References
1. Tjalling Koopmans (1936). "Linear regression analysis of economic time series" (http://iloren
tz.org/history/proefschriften/sources/Koopmans_1936.pdf) (PDF).
2. Louis W. Pauly (December 1996), "The League of Nations and the Foreshadowing of the
International Monetary Fund" (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=217344
3), Essays in International Finance, Princeton University, 201
3. View/Search Fellows of the ASA (https://www.amstat.org/awards/fellowslist.cfm), accessed
2016-07-23.
4. "T.C. Koopmans (1910 - 1985)" (https://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=auth
orDetail&aId=PE00001356). Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved
11 May 2020.
5. Ruurd Koopmans. De Macht van Twee: Kwartierstaat van de kinderen van Hendrik
Koopmans en Minke Jager (in Dutch).
6. "Ancestors of Tjalling Koopmans" (http://www.familyaffairs.nl/UK/FamousData/Koopmans.ht
ml). Family Affairs. 2010. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
7. D.Th. Kuiper (2002). Tussen observatie en participatie: twee eeuwen gereformeerde en
antirevolutionaire wereld in ontwikkelingsperspectief (in Dutch). Uitgeverij Verloren.
ISBN 978-90-6550-694-8.
8. Dewulf, Jeroen (1 December 2010). Spirit of Resistance: Dutch Clandestine Literature
During the Nazi Occupation. Boydell & Brewer. p. 125. ISBN 978-1571134936.
9. van Istendael, Geert (1 July 2005). Mijn Nederland [My Netherlands] (in Dutch). Atlas-
Contact. ISBN 9789045005195.
10. Koopmans, Tjalling Charles (1975). "Tjalling C. Koopmans - Biographical" (http://www.nobel
prize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1975/koopmans-bio.html). Nobel
Media AB 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2017.

External links
Tjalling Koopmans (https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/687) on Nobelprize.org
 Scarf, Herbert E., "Tjalling Charles Koopmans: August 28, 1910 – February 26, 1985" (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20060901092041/http://newton.nap.edu/html/biomems/tkoopmans.h
tml), National Academy of Science
IDEAS/RePEc (https://ideas.repec.org/e/pko26.html)
Tjalling Koopmans (https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=110580) at the Mathematics
Genealogy Project
Tjalling Charles Koopmans (1910–1985) (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Koopman
s.html). The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Library of Economics and Liberty
(2nd ed.). Liberty Fund. 2008.
Biography of Tjalling Koopmans (https://www.informs.org/About-INFORMS/History-and-Trad
itions/Biographical-Profiles/Koopmans-Tjalling-C) from the Institute for Operations Research
and the Management Sciences
Tjalling Charles Koopmans Papers (MS 1439). (http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.143
9) Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

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