) was an Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

n international economist and policy maker mainly in the fields of international finance and economic development.

Life

Ragnar Nurkse was born in the Käru

Käru

Käru is a small borough in Rapla County, Estonia. It is the administrative centre of Käru Parish.Käru has a station on the Edelaraudtee's western route.-External links:*...

 village, Governorate of Estonia

Governorate of Estonia

The Governorate of Estonia or Estland, also known as the Government of Estonia or Province of Estonia, was a governorate of the Russian Empire in what is now northern Estonia.-Historical overview:...

 of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

, son of an Estonian

Estonians

Estonians are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. They speak a Finnic language known as Estonian...

 father who worked himself up from lumberjack to estate manager, and an Estonian-Swedish mother. His parents emigrated to Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in 1928.

After a Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

-speaking primary school, Nurkse attended the elite Cathedral School of Tallinn, the most prestigious, German-language secondary school in the city, from where he graduated with higher honors in 1928. He continued his education at the Law School and the economics department of the University of Tartu

University of Tartu

The University of Tartu is a classical university in the city of Tartu, Estonia. University of Tartu is the national university of Estonia; it is the biggest and highest-ranked university in Estonia...

 from 1926 to 1928, and then in economics at the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

. He graduated with a first class degree in economics, under professor Sir Frederick Ogilvie

Frederick Ogilvie

Sir Frederick Wolff Ogilvie was Director-General of the BBC from 19 July 1938 to 26 January 1942, and was succeeded by joint Directors-General Cecil Graves and Robert W. Foot. He was knighted on 10 June 1942....

, in 1932. He earned a Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...

 Fellowship to study at the University of Vienna

University of Vienna

The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...

 from 1932 to 193.

Nurkse served in the Financial Section and Economic Intelligence Service of the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 from 1934 to 1945. He was the financial analyst and was largely responsible for the annual Monetary Review. He was also involved with the publication of The Review of World Trade, World Economic Surveys, and the report of the Delegation on Economic Depressions entitled "The Transition from War to Peace Economy".

In 1945, Nurkse accepted an appointment at the Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. He was a visiting lecturer at Columbia from 1945 to 1946, was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

, from 1946 to 1947, and then returned to Columbia as an Associate Professor of Economics in 1947. In 1949, he was promoted to Full Professor of Economics, a position which he held almost until his death in 1959. Nurkse spent a sabbatical (1954-1955) at the Nuffield College

Nuffield College, Oxford

Nuffield College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is an all-graduate college and primarily a research establishment, specialising in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. It is a research centre in the social sciences...

 of the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, and in 1958-1959, another one studying economic development in the University of Geneva

University of Geneva

The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...

, and lecturing around the world.

In 1958, Ragnar Nurkse accepted a Professorship of Economics and the Director of International Finance Section position at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

. However, before he could fully resume it, when Nurkse returned to Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 in the spring of 1959, he died suddenly at the age of 52.

For his 100th anniversary on 5 October 2007, the Estonian Postal Service commemorated Nurkse with an international letter stamp. A large stone monument with a plaque will also be unveiled across the house he was born in Käru. He was also honored earlier in 2007 by the inauguration of a Lecture Series by the Bank of Estonia

Bank of Estonia

The Bank of Estonia , is the central bank of Estonia, which is a member of the European Union organisation and the European System of Central Banks...

 and an international conference by Tallinn University of Technology

Tallinn University of Technology

Tallinn University of Technology is the only university of technology in Estonia, and one of the three most important institutions of higher education in Estonia generally. It is located in the capital city of Tallinn, Estonia...

's Technology Governance

Technology governance

Technology governance means the governance, i.e., the steering between the different sectors — state, business, and NGOs — of the development of technology. The concept is based on the notion of innovation and of techno-economic paradigm shifts according to the theories of Joseph A...

 program. An economics professorship at Columbia is named in his honor.

Work

Nurkse is one of the founding fathers of Classical Development Economics. Together with Rosenstein-Rodan

Paul Rosenstein-Rodan

Paul Narcyz Rosenstein-Rodan was an Austrian economists of Polish-Jewish origin born in Kraków, who was trained in the Austrian tradition under Hans Mayer in Vienna...

 and Mandelbaum

Kurt Mandelbaum

Kurt Mandelbaum was an economist well known for his pioneering contribution in the field of the economics of development.Kurt Mandelbaum was one of a group of emigre economists from Central Europe who played a large role in founding the discipline of development economics in the UK, during and...

, he promoted a 'theory of the big push

Big Push Model

The big push model is a concept in development economics or welfare economics that emphasizes the fact that a firm's decision whether to industrialize or not depends on its expectation of what other firms will do...

', emphasized the role of savings and capital formation in economic development, and argued that poor nations remained poor because of a vicious circle

Vicious Circle

Vicious Circle is an album released in 1994 by L.A. Guns. Most of the songs have Phil Lewis on lead vocals, but the track "Nothing Better to Do" features Kelly Nickels on lead vocals, and "Tarantula" is instrumental. MC Bones drums on several songs. Lewis and Bones also played together in the band...

 of poverty

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

. Among his major works are International Currency Experience: Lessons of the Interwar Period (1944), the foundation of the Bretton Woods Agreement, Conditions of International Monetary Equilibrium (1945), and Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries (1953).

Private life

Ragnar Nurkse married Harriet Berger of Englewood, New Jersey

Englewood, New Jersey

Englewood is a city located in Bergen County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 27,147.Englewood was incorporated as a city by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from portions of Ridgefield Township and the remaining portions of...

, in 1946, and they had two sons. One of them is the poet Dennis Nurkse

Dennis Nurkse

-Life:Nurkse is the son of the eminent economist Ragnar Nurkse. He has taught workshops at Rikers Island, and his poems about prison life appeared in The American Poetry Review, Evergreen Review, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, The Kenyon Review, and other magazines...

.

External links

• Ragnar Nurkse Papers at Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University