Understanding the bitterness of Wassily Leontief: Postwar success and failures of input-output techniques

40 Pages Posted: 4 Apr 2022

See all articles by Vincent Carret

Vincent Carret

Heider College of Business, Creighton University

Date Written: March 9, 2022

Abstract

Although Leontief was and still is one of the most recognized names in economics, inextricably linked to the development of input-output techniques, he remained fiercely critical of other economists’ works and of the state of economic science during his whole life. To understand his bitterness, we go back to the root of the split between Leontief and the rest of the economics profession, through an examination of the debates that took place in the late 1940s. From his input-output model, conceived as an operational theory of economic interdependencies, Leontief drew a specific approach to economic policy and planning which had a lot of success with government agencies, explaining how he could durably sustain his split from the profession.

Keywords: Leontief,Koopmans,Klein

JEL Classification: B10,C67,B22

Suggested Citation

Carret, Vincent, Understanding the bitterness of Wassily Leontief: Postwar success and failures of input-output techniques (March 9, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4053960 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4053960

Vincent Carret (Contact Author)

Heider College of Business, Creighton University ( email )

2500 California St.
Omaha, NE 68178
United States

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