Tjalling C. Koopmans; Won Nobel Prize in Economics
Tjalling C. Koopmans, a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and retired professor at Yale University, has died at 74.
Koopmans, who died Tuesday at Yale-New Haven Hospital, was known for his work in economic theory and mathematics and shared the Nobel Prize in 1975 with Leonid Kantrovich of the Soviet Union. The two worked independently in developing econometric models that could be applied to transportation unit scheduling.
Born in the Netherlands on Aug. 28, 1910, Koopmans received his master’s degree from the University of Utrecht in 1933 and his Ph.D. from the University of Leiden in 1936.
During World War II, Koopmans worked in Washington as a statistician on wartime shipping.
He joined Yale in 1955 as a full professor and became the university’s first Alfred Cowles professor of economics when the chair was endowed in 1967. He also served as director of the Cowles Foundation, the research arm of Yale’s economics department, from 1961 to 1967.
He is survived by his wife, Truus Wanningen Koopmans; a son; two daughters, and a brother. Private services were planned but a memorial meeting will be held Tuesday on the Yale campus.
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