Tjalling Charles Koopmans (August 28, 1910 – February 26, 1985) was a Dutch-American mathematician and economist. He was the joint winner with Leonid Kantorovich of the 1975 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on the theory of the optimum allocation of resources. Koopmans showed that on the basis of certain efficiency criteria, it is possible to make important deductions concerning optimum price systems.
Koopmans's early works on the Hartree–Fock theory are associated with the Koopmans' theorem, which is very well known in quantum chemistry. Koopmans was awarded his Nobel memorial prize (jointly with Leonid Kantorovich) for his contributions to the field of resource allocation, specifically the theory of optimal use of resources. The work for which the prize was awarded focused on activity analysis, the study of interactions between the inputs and outputs of production, and their relationship to economic efficiency and prices. Finally, the importance of the article by Koopmans (1942) deriving the distribution of the serial correlation coefficient was recognized by John von Neumann, and it later influenced the optimal tests for a unit root by John Denis Sargan and Alok Bhargava (Sargan and Bhargava, 1983).
Family and name
Tjalling Charles Koopmans was a son of Sjoerd Koopmans and Wytske van der Zee; his middle name Charles was probably derived from his patronymic "Sjoerds".[5]
One of Sjoerd Koopmans's sisters, Gatske Koopmans, and her husband Symon van der Meer were the paternal grandparents of Nobel Prize winner Simon van der Meer.[6][7] Tjalling Koopmans and Simon van der Meer were therefore first cousins once removed.
Tjalling had two brothers, one of whom was theologian Rev. Dr Jan Koopmans, who in 1940, early during the German occupation of the Netherlands, wrote the widely distributed pamphlet "Bijna te laat" ("Almost too late", 30,000 copies), warning about the future of the Jews under the Nazi regime.[8] In 1945, towards the end of the war, he witnessed an execution of hostages in Amsterdam from behind a window and was mortally wounded by a stray bullet.[9][10]
Koopmans married Truus Wanningen in October 1936. The couple had three children - a son, Henry, and two daughters, Anne and Helen.
Hughes Hallett, Andrew J. (1989). "Econometrics and the Theory of Economic Policy: The Tinbergen–Theil Contributions 40 Years On". Oxford Economic Papers. 41 (1): 189–214. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.oep.a041892. JSTOR2663189.
^D.Th. Kuiper (2002). Tussen observatie en participatie: twee eeuwen gereformeerde en antirevolutionaire wereld in ontwikkelingsperspectief (in Dutch). Uitgeverij Verloren. ISBN978-90-6550-694-8.
^Dewulf, Jeroen (1 December 2010). Spirit of Resistance: Dutch Clandestine Literature During the Nazi Occupation. Boydell & Brewer. p. 125. ISBN978-1571134936.
^van Istendael, Geert (1 July 2005). Mijn Nederland [My Netherlands] (in Dutch). Atlas-Contact. ISBN9789045005195.