Jan Tinbergen

Little is known about Jan Tinbergen’s personal life except that he was married to Tine Johanna de Wit and possibly had four children. The family lived in a simple house in the middleclass neighborhood of The Haviklaan, The Hague.

An unassuming man, he never drove a car; but chose to take public transport to work even after winning the Nobel Prize. While he focused on the economic development around the world, he was also very fond of drawing, something that he learned as a child from his father.

On June 9, 1994, Jan Tinbergen died from natural causes, at The Hague, at the age of 91.

Jan Tinbergen was born on April 12, 1903 in The Hague. His father, Dirk Cornelis Tinbergen, a scholar of Medieval Dutch, taught Dutch language in Gymnasium of The Hague. He successfully transmitted his love for art and language into his children, often taking them out for walks and bike rides.

His mother, Jeannette nee van Eek, was the daughter of a mathematics teacher. Before her marriage, she was primary teacher in Scheveningen, and thereafter started giving private tuitions to earn some extra income. She almost personified order and regularity, running the household efficiently and concurrently pursuing her own interest in mathematics.

Jan was the eldest of his parents’ five children. Next to him was Nikolaas Tinbergen, who in 1973 won the Nobel Prize for Physiology. Youngest was Luuk Tinbergen, who grew up to be a famous ornithologist and ecologist. Between them were a sister called Jacomiena and a brother named Dik.

Apart from his own siblings, Jan also grew up with number of other children, raised by the Tinbergens in the same house. Most of them had their parents living in Dutch East Indies. But during the First World War, they also had some Belgium and Austrian refugees living with them.

Jan Tinbergen was a very good student from the very beginning, earning certificate as the “most excellent pupil” in his primary school. Later he attended Hogere Bugerschool, which was designed especially for middle class children, who aspired to rise above their status. Here his favorite subjects were the sciences and mathematics.

In 1928, the head of the Central Bureau of Statistics, pleased by his achievements, had offered Tinbergen a permanent job there. Therefore, soon after earning his PhD in Physics in 1929, he began his career as a statistician at CBS, remaining there until 1945.

Initially, he served as the editor of 'De Nederlandsche Conjunctuur', the newly founded official journal of the Bureau. But very soon, as it opened their unit of business cycle research, he was put in its charge.

Here, he took up empirical approach to solve the economic problems caused by the ongoing depression. Access to the vast data held by CBS also helped him to test his theoretical models.

In 1930, he cofounded Econometric Society with other like-minded youth, also starting a journal named 'Econometrica'. It provided the much needed platform for discussing and presenting different economic issues.

In 1931, concurrently with working at CBS, he started teaching at the University of Amsterdam as Professor of Statistics. Later in 1933, he moved to The Netherlands School of Economics in Rotterdam as Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, a position he held until 1973.

Developing comprehensive macroeconomic models, which he first created for Netherlands in 1936, is one of his most important works. In it, he described the variables from the entire economy and then placed them in a mathematical relationship. Later, the same model was applied to the USA and the UK.

He is also remembered as a pioneer in modern economic dynamics. His contribution to the creation of modern techniques of economic forecasting and prediction is equally appreciated till dateJan .