Robert Solow

Robert M. Solow was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA on August 23, 1924 into a Jewish family.He was the eldest of the three children. He had two younger sisters.

Both his parents were children of immigrants who had to start earning a living as soon as they passed out from their school. His father Milton Henry Solow was involved in an international business dealing in furs and his mother was Hannah Gertrude Sarney. He was the first generation of children to attend university.

He did his initial schooling at public schools in New York City and excelled in his studies. He won a scholarship for studying at the Harvard College at the age of 16.

Solow joined the Harvard College in 1940 where he studied sociology, anthropology and elementary economics initially.

In 1942, at the age of 18, he left the university and joined the Army Signal Corps to fight in the Second World War and served briefly in North Africa, Sicily and Italy.

In 1949 he was offered the post of Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and joined the institute in 1950. Here he taught courses in econometrics and statistics.

In 1950 he developed the mathematical model which shows how various factors can jointly contribute to create sustained economic growth for the country. Contrary to the normal belief, he illustrated that the progress of technology provides a bigger boost to the economy rather than an increase in only capital or labor.

His interests turned gradually to macroeconomics and he worked with Samuelson on the ‘Von Neuman growth theory’ during 1953, the ‘theory of capital’ during 1956, ‘linear programming’ theory during 1958 and the ‘Phillips curve’ during 1960.

He became a full professor at the M. I. T. in 1958 and a professor emeritus in 1995.

He joined the ‘Council of Economic Advisers’ in the John F. Kennedy administration as a senior economist and worked with council from 1961 to 1962 and was a consultant for the council from 1962 to 1968.

Robert M. Solow’s first major work was an article titled ‘A contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth’ which was published in 1956.

His second article ‘Technical Change and the Aggregate Production function’, written in collaboration with Paul Samuelson and Robert Dorfman, came out in 1958 while his third work ‘Capital Theory and the Rate of Return’ was published in 1963.

‘The New Industrial State of Son of Affluence’ was published in 1967.