Tjalling Koopmans

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Lore & Background

Koopmans began his university education at Utrecht University at seventeen, specializing in mathematics. Three years later, in 1930, he switched to theoretical physics. In 1933, he met Jan Tinbergen, the winner of the 1969 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, and moved to Amsterdam to study mathematical economics under him. In addition to mathematical economics, Koopmans extended his explorations to econometrics and statistics. In 1936, he graduated from Leiden University with a PhD under Hendrik Kramers, with a thesis titled 'Linear regression analysis of economic time series.' He also worked for the Economic and Financial Organization of the League of Nations. Koopmans moved to the United States in 1940. There, he worked for a government body in Washington, D.C., publishing on the economics of transportation focusing on optimal routing, then moved to Chicago to join the Cowles Commission for 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. 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 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 of atomic and molecular structure are associated with the Koopmans' theorem, which is very well known in quantum chemistry. He married Truus Wanningen in October 1936. The couple had three children – a son, Henry, and two daughters, Anne and Helen. Tjalling Koopmans and Simon van der Meer were first cousins once removed.

Reader's Guide

Koopmans's significance lies in his foundational contributions to the theory of optimal resource allocation, for which he shared the 1975 Nobel Memorial Prize. His work on activity analysis—the study of interactions between the inputs and outputs of production—and its relationship to economic efficiency and prices provided a rigorous framework for understanding optimum price systems. Beyond economics, his early work on the Hartree-Fock theory led to Koopmans' theorem, a staple in quantum chemistry. His 1942 article on the distribution of the serial correlation coefficient influenced later statistical tests for unit roots by John Denis Sargan and Alok Bhargava. As director of the Cowles Commission, he helped shape the field of econometrics and moved the institution to Yale University in 1955, ensuring its continued influence as the Cowles Foundation.

Did You Know?

• Koopmans began university at Utrecht University at age seventeen, specializing in mathematics.
• He met Jan Tinbergen in 1933 and moved to Amsterdam to study mathematical economics under him.
• His PhD thesis at Leiden University in 1936 was titled 'Linear regression analysis of economic time series.'
• Koopmans was a first cousin once removed of Nobel Prize winner Simon van der Meer.
• His 1942 article on the serial correlation coefficient influenced later optimal tests for a unit root by Sargan and Bhargava.