Ragnar Nurkse
Ragnar Nurkse (5 October [O.S. 22 September] 1907, Virumaa, Estonia - 6 May 1959, near Lake Geneva, Switzerland) was an Estonian scholar of international economics, international finance, and economic development. He served in the League of Nations and taught at Columbia University. Nurkse continued to build on Rosenstein-Rodan's 'theory of the big push', emphasized the role of savings and capital formation in economic development, and argued that poor nations remained poor because of a vicious circle of poverty. Among his major works are "International Currency Experience: Lessons of the Interwar Period" (1944), "Conditions of International Monetary Equilibrium" (1945), and "Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries" (1953).
Ragnar Nurkse was born in Käru perish, Virumaa county of the then Governorate of Estonia of the Russian Empire, son of an Estonian father and an Estonian-Swedish mother. His parents emigrated from Estonia to Canada in 1928.
In 1926, Nurkse graduated from the German-language secondary school (Domschule zu Reval) in Tallinn. He continued his education at the University of Tartu from 1926 to 1928, and then the University of Edinburgh. He graduated from Edinburgh with a first class degree in economics, under professor Sir Frederick Ogilvie, in 1932. He earned a Carnegie Fellowship to study at the University of Vienna from 1932 to 1934.
Nurkse served in the Financial Section and Economic Intelligence Service of the League of Nations from 1934 to 1945. Nurkse 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 Columbia University in New York City. He was a visiting lecturer at Columbia from 1945 to 1946, taught at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, 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 until his death in 1959. Nurkse spent a sabbatical (1954-1955) at the Nuffield College of the University of Oxford, and for 1958 to 1959, he spent the year studying economic development in the University of Geneva, 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. However, when Nurkse returned to Geneva in the spring of 1959, he died suddenly at the age of 52.
Private life
Ragnar Nurkse married Harriet Berger of Englewood, New Jersey, in 1946, and they had two sons. One of them is the poet Dennis Nurkse.
Further reading
- Kukk, Kalev (2004). (Re)discovering Ragnar Nurkse. Kroon & Economy No. 1, 2004.