Eli Heckscher

Eli Heckscher

Eli Filip Heckscher (Stockholm, 24 November 1879 - Stockholm, 23 December 1952) was a Swedish political economist and economic historian.

Biography

Heckscher was born in Stockholm into a prominent Jewish family, son of the Danish-born businessman Isidor Heckscher and his spouse Rosa Meyer, and completed his secondary education there in 1897. He studied at university in Uppsala and Gothenburg, completing his PhD in Uppsala in 1907. He was professor of Political economy and Statistics at the Stockholm School of Economics from 1909 until 1929, when he exchanged that chair for a research professorship in economic history, finally retiring as emeritus professor in 1945.

According to a bibliography published in 1950, Heckscher had as of the previous year published 1148 books and articles, among which may be mentioned his study of Mercantilism, translated into several languages, and a monumental Economic history of Sweden in several volumes. Heckscher is best known for a model explaining patterns in international trade (Heckscher-Ohlin model) that he developed with Bertil Ohlin at the Stockholm School of Economics.

Eli Heckscher's son was Gunnar Heckscher (1909-1987), political scientist and leader of what later became Moderate Party 1961-1965. His grandson, however, is Social Democratic politician Sten Heckscher.

References

• Bertil Ohlin, "Heckscher, Eli Filip", Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, vol. 18, pp. 376-381.

Further reading

• Eli Heckscher, International Trade, and Economic History, Findlay, Ronald, Rolf G. H. Henriksson, Håkan Lindgren and Mats Lundahl, eds., The MIT Press, 2007.