Edwin Kuh Dies; Pioneer in Field of Econometrics

Edwin Kuh, who established an international reputation as a pioneer in the field of econometrics while lending his skills to two Democratic presidential candidates, died Monday at his home here of cancer.

A spokesman for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a professor of economics and finance, said Kuh was 61.

Kuh, who headed MIT’s Center for Computational Research in Economics and Management Science since it began in 1978, was credited with discovering econometrics, a theory holding that productivity varies at stages in the business cycle.

He noted that productivity improves sharply during the cycle’s recovery phase, peaks before the economy peaks and declines before the economy slides into recession.

The systems Kuh developed are widely used in Europe by major banks and research organizations.

Affirmative Action

John Kenneth Galbraith, economics professor emeritus at Harvard, said Kuh also should be remembered for an early contribution to the idea of affirmative action.

“Some 15 or more years ago, he was one of a group of economists who urged that the civil rights movement be affirmed by a 10-year program by which large corporations and the federal, state and local governments would bring minorities and women into higher-level employment in the same proportions that they existed in the working force,” Galbraith said.

Kuh was an adviser to Robert F. Kennedy during Kennedy’s 1968 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and to the party’s 1972 nominee, former Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota.

Kuh also served on the President’s Materials Policy Commission and the Economic Advisory Panel of the U.S. Postal Service and was adviser to the governments of Greece, China and Costa Rica.