Abram Bergson
Abram Bergson(born Abram Burk, April 21, 1914, inBaltimore, Maryland– April 23, 2003, inCambridge, Massachusetts) was an Americaneconomist,academician, and professor in the Harvard Economics Department since 1956.[1]
Early life and education[edit]
He graduated with an A.B. degree fromJohns Hopkins Universityin 1933 and his A.M. and Ph.D. fromHarvard Universityin 1935 and 1940, respectively.[2]
Career[edit]
In a 1938 paper Bergson defined and discussed the notion of an individualisticsocial welfare function.The paper delineated necessary marginal conditions foreconomic efficiency,relative to:
- real-valuedordinal utilityfunctions of individuals (illustrated byindifference-curve maps) for commodities
- labor supplied
- other resource constraints.
In so doing, it showed howwelfare economicscould dispense with interpersonally-comparablecardinal utility(say measured by money income), either individually or in the aggregate, with no loss of behavioral significance.
Bergson was chief of the Russian Economic subdivision of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. After the war he taught atColumbia UniversityandHarvard University.He was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciencesin 1963.[3]From 1964, he was director of the Harvard Russian Research Center and became chairman of the Social Sciences Advisory Board of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Societyin 1965.[4]
His main contribution to the study of the Soviet Union was the development and implementation of a method for the calculation of national output and economic growth in the absence of market valuation. The calculation is based on factor price. In 1960 Bergson (wrongly) predicted that the USSR would overtake the US economically by the 1980s.[5]He was elected to the United StatesNational Academy of Sciencesin 1980.[6]
Literary works[edit]
- 1938. "A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics," 1938.Quarterly Journal of Economics,52(2), pp.310-334.
- 1954. "On the Concept of Social Welfare,"Quarterly Journal of Economics,68(2), pp.233-252.
- Structure of Soviet Wages,1944
- SovietNational Incomeand Product in 1937,1950
- Essays in Normative Economics,1966
References[edit]
- ^Samuelson, Paul,*ABRAM BERGSON April 21, 1914–April 23, 2003 ",NAP.
- ^Gewirtz, Ken."Abram Bergson Dies at 89",The Harvard Gazette,May 2, 2003.
- ^"Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B"(PDF).American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Archived(PDF)from the original on 25 July 2011.RetrievedJune 16,2011.
- ^"APS Member History".search.amphilsoc.org.Retrieved2022-10-06.
- ^"Professor Predicts Soviet Union Growth Will Overtake U.S."The Harvard Crimson.October 17, 1960.ISSN1932-4219.Retrieved9 July2021.
- ^"Abram Bergson".National Academy of Sciences.Retrieved2022-10-06.
- M. Ellman, "Bergson, Abram," 1987,TheNew Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics,"v.1,229-30
External links[edit]
- https://web.archive.org/web/20060619182023/http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/bergson.htm
- http://cruel.org/econthought/profiles/bergson.html(in Japanese)
- Paul A. Samuelson, "Abram Bergson", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2004)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
 | This biography of an American economist is astub.You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it. |
- 1914 births
- 2003 deaths
- Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Fellows of the Econometric Society
- 20th-century American economists
- Columbia University faculty
- Harvard University faculty
- Harvard University alumni
- Johns Hopkins University alumni
- Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association
- American economist stubs
- Members of the American Philosophical Society