Arrow, Kenneth (1921–)

Born August 23, 1921, in New York City, Kenneth J. Arrow was awarded the Royal Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (widely known as the Nobel Memorial Prize) in 1972 with Sir John R. Hicks for their contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory. Arrow is one of the major representatives of the neoclassical school of economics. His main contributions were devoted to the fields of social choice theory—which includes his famous Arrow impossibility theorem—general equilibrium theory, growth theory, and economics of information and organization.

He graduated in 1940 with a B.S. in social science with a major in mathematics at City College of New York. He received an M.A. in mathematics in 1941 from Columbia University. During ...