Kenneth Arrow

He has served as the President of various professional societies like Econometric Society in 1956, The Institute of Management Sciences in 1963 and American Economic Association in 1973.

Kenneth Joseph Arrow was born to Harry and Lilian on 23 August 1921 in New York City, USA. He has a sister named Anita Arrow Summers who also grew up to become an economist.

After completing his high school education from the Townsend Harris High School in New York City, he went on to pursue graduation from City College, New York. In 1940 he graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Social Science but a major in Mathematics.

In 1941, he completed his n M.A. in Mathematics from Columbia University. At the university, he studied under mathematics statistician Harold Hotelling who had a great influence on him.

Between the years 1942 and 1946, during the World War II, he served in the United States Armed City Corps as a weather officer subsequently rising to the rank of a Captain.

He spent the following three years pursuing his graduation studies in Economics at the Columbia University along with research work at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics affiliated to the University of Chicago. Between 1948 and 1949 he worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago.

In 1942, he was appointed at the Stanford University as Assistant Professor of Economics and Statistics. He later became Professor of Economics, Statistics, and Operations Research and continued work at the University until 1968.

In 1951 he published the ‘Impossibility theorem’ also known as Arrow's paradox in his book titled ‘Social Choice and Individual Values’. The theorem states that ‘when voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no ranked order voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a pre-specified set of criteria.’ The defined criteria are unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency, and independence of irrelevant alternatives.

In 1951 he put forward the first and second fundamental theorems of welfare economics along with their proofs.

He is a respected economist and writer known for his findings in the field of welfare economics. He has worked on economic theory and operations with focus on ideas like general equilibrium analysis, social choice theory, inventory theory, risk handling, information economics and the new- growth theory.