Lawrence Klein papers, 1950-2016
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Summary
- Creator:
- Klein, Lawrence R. (Lawrence Robert), 1920-2013
- Abstract:
- Lawrence Klein (1920-2013) was a Nobel Prize winner and the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Economics and Finance, Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. This collection primarily documents his professional life through his correspondence, writings, research, and professional and faculty activities. It forms parts of the Economists' Papers Archive.
- Extent:
- 52.5 Linear Feet (35 boxes.)
3 Megabytes (One set.) - Language:
- Material in English.
- Collection ID:
- RL.00786
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection contains files for Klein's professional correspondence, writings, research, and professional and faculty activities.
The Dissertations series contains copies and drafts of dissertations and theses written by Klein's students and advisees during his tenure at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Subjects, Organizations, and Research series contains subject files on various publications, research topics, projects, and organizations with which Klein worked. There is teaching and committee material from his time at the University of Pennsylvania, files on his presidency of the National Academy of Sciences, and a redacted version of the FBI's file on him.
The Project LINK series contains meeting and research material, reports, and audio recordings related to that project, for which Klein served as principal investigator along with Bert Hickman, Rudolf Rhomberg, and Aaron Gordon.
The Correspondence series contains letters, memos, and faxes received or written by Klein. Much of the correspondence was exchanged with colleagues in the field of economics, and reflects collaborative research endeavors.
The Writings series contains papers and speeches written by Klein for journals, newspapers, and congressional testimony.
The Writings by Others series contains non-dissertation writings collected by Klein for his own research or interest.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Lawrence Robert Klein (1920-2013) was a white American academic economist who was born in Omaha, Nebraska and died in Galdwyne, Pennsylvania. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1942, and studied under economist Paul Samuelson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, completing his PhD in 1944. In November 1944, Klein was recruited by the Cowles Commission as a research associate to work on the construction of a macroeconometric model of the US economy. Over the following years, he worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, and the Institute of Statistics at the University of Oxford, before accepting a position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1958. He became the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Economics and Finance at the Wharton School in 1968 and retired in 1991. He received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1959 and was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1980.
With the purpose of providing a scientific tool for policy analysis and economic planning, Klein led and participated in various projects to build large-scale macroeconometric models in several countries. Some of these important projects were the Wharton School models, the SSRC-Brookings model, and the multinational Project LINK. Throughout his life, Klein also built a vast international network of collaborators, visiting and working with economists from all around the world since the late 1940s. In these early years, Klein went several times to Norway, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, where he met with Ragnar Frisch, Jan Tinbergen, and Richard Stone, among many others. Later on, during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Klein continued his international activity, visiting not only European countries, but also establishing important relations with economists in Japan, China, Australia, Israel, and Mexico, among other countries. His earlier enthusiasm about Marxist theory was later reflected in his interest on the possibilities of building large-scale macroeconometric models of Soviet countries. He and his wife, Sonia, had four children.
- Acquisition information:
- The Lawrence Klein papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library as gifts in 1986 and 2011, and from E. Roy Weintraub in 2014 and 2019.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Meghan Lyon and Jane Metters, November 2011.
Updated with enhanced description by Erich Pinzon Fuchs, May 2016.
Electronic records processed by Zachary Tumlin, June 2023.
Accessions described in this finding aid: 2011-1000, 2014-0094, and 2019-0010.
- Arrangement:
-
The Lawrence Klein papers are arranged into seven series: Dissertations; Subjects, Organizations, and Research; Project LINK; Correspondence; Writings; Writings by Others; and Miscellaneous.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Subjects
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Contents
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- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Lawrence Klein papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.
- Permalink:
- https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/m1zh1h