The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
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List of the most influential people in Economics,
#4551
Stafford Cripps
1889 - 1952 (63 years)
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was a British Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat. A wealthy lawyer by background, he first entered Parliament at a by-election in 1931, and was one of a handful of Labour frontbenchers to retain his seat at the general election that autumn. He became a leading spokesman for the left-wing and co-operation in a Popular Front with Communists before 1939, in which year he was expelled from the Labour Party.
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Hieronim Stroynowski
1752 - 1815 (63 years)
Hieronim Stroynowski was a Polish bishop and economist. He was the rector of Vilnius University from 1799 to 1806 and the Bishop of Vilnius from 1814 until his death in 1815. His writings on economics contributed to Polish liberalism.
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Hazel Kyrk
1886 - 1957 (71 years)
Hazel Kyrk was an American economist and pioneer of consumer economics. Early life and education Hazel Kyrk was born in 1886 in Ashley, Ohio and was the only child of Elmer Kyrk, a drayman, and Jane Kyrk, a homemaker.
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İdris Küçükömer
1925 - 1987 (62 years)
İdris Küçükömer was a Turkish academic, philosopher and economist whose views has been influential in Turkish politics. He developed an alternative interpretation of Kemalism from the mid-1960s to his death.
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Dag Hammarskjöld
1905 - 1961 (56 years)
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. As of 2023, he remains the youngest person to have held the post, having been only 47 years old when he was appointed. He was a son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1914 to 1917.
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Johann Beckmann
1739 - 1811 (72 years)
Johann Beckmann was a German scientific author and coiner of the word technology, to mean the science of trades. He was the first man to teach technology and write about it as an academic subject. Life He was born on 4 June 1739 at Hoya in Hanover, where his father was postmaster and receiver of taxes. He was educated at Stade and the university of Göttingen, where he studied theology, mathematics, physics, natural history, and public finance and administration. After completing his studies, in 1762 he made a study tour through Brunswick and the Dutch Republic examining mines, factories, natu...
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Leo Harmaja
1880 - 1949 (69 years)
Leo Harmaja was a Finnish economist and statistician and professor of economics. Leo Harmaja graduated from the Mikkeli Lyceum in 1898 and then studied at the University of Helsinki, graduating with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1903 and a licentiate in philosophy and a doctorate in philosophy in 1907. Harmaja's dissertation was on the implementation of the Gothenburg system in Finland.
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Wilhelm Lexis
1837 - 1914 (77 years)
Wilhelm Lexis , full name Wilhelm Hector Richard Albrecht Lexis, was a German statistician, economist, and social scientist. The Oxford Dictionary of Statistics cites him as a "pioneer of the analysis of demographic time series". Lexis is largely remembered for two items that bear his name—the Lexis ratio and the Lexis diagram.
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Matthew B. Hammond
1868 - 1933 (65 years)
Matthew Brown Hammond was an American economist. He was a professor of economics and sociology at Ohio State University since 1904. Hammond earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in 1891, and PhD in economics from Columbia University in 1898.
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Carl C. Plehn
1867 - 1945 (78 years)
Carl Copping Plehn was an American economist. He was a professor of public finance at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1893 to 1937. In 1923, he served as the 25th president of the American Economic Association.
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Alfred Amonn
1883 - 1962 (79 years)
Alfred Amonn was an Austrian economist . He studied law and economics at the universities of Innsbruck and Vienna, being named an associate professor at the University of Freiburg in 1910. He taught as a professor at Czernowitz University , German Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague , Tokyo University , University of Berne .
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Jacob Hollander
1871 - 1940 (69 years)
Jacob Harry Hollander was an American economist. Biography Hollander was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BA in 1891, and a PhD in 1894. He became associate professor of finance there. In 1900, he became assistant professor of political economy, becoming full professor in 1904. He was appointed secretary to the Bimetallic Commission of 1897. US President McKinley named him Treasurer of the island of Puerto Rico in 1900. He resigned in 1901 after introducing a tax system. He was special commissioner to investigate financial conditions in San Domingo and until 1908 was financial advisor of the Dominican Republic.
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Edwin R. A. Seligman
1861 - 1939 (78 years)
Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman , was an American economist who spent his entire academic career at Columbia University in New York City. Seligman is best remembered for his pioneering work involving taxation and public finance. His principles for a progressive federal income tax were adopted by Congress after the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment. A prolific scholar and teacher, his students had great influence on the fiscal architecture of postcolonial nations. He served as an influential founding member of the American Economics Association.
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Beth Hayes
1955 - 1984 (29 years)
Beth Hayes was an American economist specializing in theoretical microeconomics. She has been memorialized by an award established by the University of Pennsylvania. Educational background Hayes graduated from the honors program at the University of Michigan in 1977 and received her Ph.D. in Economics in 1982 from the University of Pennsylvania, studying under David Cass. Her dissertation, Three Essays in Microeconomic Theory, formed the basis for her foundational work in research on two-part tariffs and asymmetrical information, and insurance contracts.
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Ernest L. Bogart
1870 - 1958 (88 years)
Ernest Ludlow Bogart was an American economist. He was a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1909 to 1938. In 1931, he served as president of the American Economic Association.
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Moisés Bensabat Amzalak
1892 - 1978 (86 years)
Moisés Bensabat Amzalak was a Portuguese scholar and economist. Amzalak was born and educated in Lisbon. He combined a successful business career with broad academic activity. A devoted Jew, a central figure in the Portuguese Jewish Community, he headed the Lisbon Jewish community from 1926 until his death in 1978.
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Henry Rogers Seager
1870 - 1930 (60 years)
Henry Rogers Seager was an American economist, and Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University, who served as president of the American Association for Labor Legislation. Inspired by the work of the Austrian School, Seager published his main work "Principles of Economics" in 1913. Inline with the institutional economics this textbook was typical "empirical and institutional in applied work, that dealt with real markets." In 1929 he published his most cited work, entitled "Trust and corporation problems."
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Ingvar Wedervang
1891 - 1961 (70 years)
Ingvar Brynhjulf Wedervang was a Norwegian economist and statistician. He graduated from the University of Oslo with a degree in economics in 1913. During the next nine years, he worked first as a government statistician with Statistics Norway, then for the private company Treschow-Fritzøe, and again for a government agency. In 1922 he moved to Munich and continued his studies. He returned to Statistics Norway in 1923 and received his doctorate in 1925 with a dissertation on the sex proportion at birth and infant mortality. Wedervang became lecturer at the University of Oslo in 1925 and was a...
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Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob
1759 - 1827 (68 years)
Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob was a German philosopher, political scientist and economist. During the French occupation of Germany, he worked as a consultant and professor in Russia. Biography He was born at Wettin, Duchy of Magdeburg; in 1777 he entered the University of Halle. In 1780 he was appointed teacher at the gymnasium, and in 1791 professor of philosophy at the university. He was very popular as a lecturer on metaphysics, but after 1800 turned his attention especially to political economy.
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Henry Parker Willis
1874 - 1937 (63 years)
Henry Parker Willis was an American financial expert. Biography He was born at Weymouth, Massachusetts, the son of the Universalist minister and suffragist Olympia Brown. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. in 1897 and was a member of Alpha Kappa Psi professional business fraternity.
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Willem Somermeyer
1919 - 1982 (63 years)
Willem Hendrik Somermeyer was a Dutch economist, Professor in Econometrics at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, particularly known for his consumption-savings model.
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Charles L. Beach
1866 - 1933 (67 years)
Charles Lewis Beach was an American agricultural educator who served as the 4th president of Connecticut Agricultural College, now the University of Connecticut, from 1908 to 1928. Beach played a pivotal role in UConn's development. He also laid the foundations for the future William Benton Museum of Art. Beach is one of only five presidents to hold the honorary title of President Emeritus.
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James Wilson
1805 - 1860 (55 years)
James Wilson was a Scottish businessman, economist, and Liberal politician who founded The Economist weekly and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, which merged with Standard Bank in 1969 to form Standard Chartered. He was the first Finance Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council from December 1859 until his death in August 1860. Sent there to put order into the chaos that followed the "Sepoy Mutiny" of 1857, he presented India's first budget, and was responsible for the government accounting system, Pay Office, and audit, apart from government paper currency, Indian Police, a...
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Thomas Swain Barclay
1892 - 1993 (101 years)
Thomas Swain Barclay was a professor of political science at Stanford University. He taught five U.S. senators and countless other Stanford University students over three decades. Barclay was born into a politically active Democratic family in St. Louis, Missouri.
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Alex Hunter
1919 - 1971 (52 years)
Alexander Hunter was a Scottish-Australian industrial economist. He arrived in Australia in 1958 after being appointed a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne. He then gained prominence as the editor of The Economics of Australian Industry. He became a professor of economics at the University of New South Wales in 1961, then moving to the Australian National University in 1965. He was a member of the editorial board of the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies. He was married to Thelma Anna Carmela Cibelli and had three children. Hunter died of a coronary occlusion during a visit t...
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Ernest Boyd MacNaughton
1880 - 1960 (80 years)
Ernest Boyd MacNaughton was president of the First National Bank of Oregon , then chairman , president of The Oregonian publishing company , and president of Reed College . He is the namesake of the ACLU E.B. MacNaughton Civil Liberties Award.
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William Cunningham Smith
1871 - 1943 (72 years)
William Cunningham Smith was an American academic of English literature, university administrator, and writer. Life and career Born in Greensboro, Smith was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He attended graduate school at Harvard University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1900 he came to the State Normal and Industrial College as a professor of English, and in 1904 he became head of the department. In 1905, Smith became Dean of the College, in 1915 Dean of the Faculty, and in 1922 Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. During his tenure at the College he was chairman of chapel and conducted devotional services.
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Carl Heinrich Hagen
1785 - 1856 (71 years)
Carl Heinrich Hagen was a jurist, socio-economist and, between 1811 and 1835, senior government official . From 1811 he was also a professor of jurisprudence and the University of Königsberg in what was at that time East Prussia.
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Hugo Richard Meyer
1866 - 1923 (57 years)
Hugo Richard Meyer was an American author and economist concerned with public ownership of telegraph, phone, railway and other utilities. Biography Meyer graduated from Harvard College in 1892, and attended the Harvard Graduate School in 1892-96 where he received an A.M. in 1894. He was instructor in political economy at Harvard in 1897-1903, and was assistant professor in that subject at the University of Chicago in 1904-05. After 1907, he resided in Melbourne where he was writing a history of state ownership in Victoria, Australia.
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George Grafton Wilson
1863 - 1951 (88 years)
George Grafton Wilson was a distinguished professor of International Law during the first half of the 20th century. He served on the faculties of Brown University, Harvard University, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the U.S. Naval War College.
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Werner von Siemens
1816 - 1892 (76 years)
Ernst Werner Siemens was a German electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist. Siemens's name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. He founded the electrical and telecommunications conglomerate Siemens and invented the electric tram, trolley bus, electric locomotive and electric elevator.
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John Lee Coulter
1881 - 1959 (78 years)
John Lee Coulter was an American academic. He assumed several roles within the federal government, and served as president of the North Dakota Agriculture College from 1921 to 1929. Coulter was born in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, on April 16, 1881, and attended the University of North Dakota before earning his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in 1908. He began teaching at the University of Minnesota later that year. Coulter started working for the federal government in 1910, leading the U. S. Census of Agriculture. He helped establish the system of banks and credit unions for rural use under the provisions of the Federal Farm Loan Act.
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Andrew Dewar Gibb
1888 - 1974 (86 years)
Andrew Dewar Gibb MBE QC was a Scottish advocate, barrister, professor and politician. He taught law at Edinburgh and Cambridge, and was Regius Professor of Law at the University of Glasgow 1934–1958. Gibb was the leader of the Scottish National Party from 1936 to 1940.
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Johannes Broene
1875 - 1967 (92 years)
Johannes Broene was an academic and twice served as president of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, US. He was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and his father was a minister of the Christian Reformed Church. Broene attended the University of Michigan and Valparaiso University, from which he graduated in 1906. He went on to do graduate work at Clark University and pursued his doctorate at Clark, while working as a teacher and later principal of Christian schools in Paterson, New Jersey, and Chicago, Illinois. He joined the Calvin College faculty in 1908, teaching primarily in Philosophy and Education.
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Kenneth Hill
1911 - 1973 (62 years)
Kenneth Robson Hill was a British academic and academic administrator. He was educated at Washington Secondary School and King's College London. He was Professor of Pathology at University College of the West Indies from 1949 to 1956. He also served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Benin, Nigeria however his tenure was cut short because of ill health He was a member of the Athenaeum Club.
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Boris Brutskus
1874 - 1938 (64 years)
Boris Davydovich Brutskus was an economist from the Russian Empire. Brutskus was born in Polangen/Palanga in Lithuania, which was then part of the Russian Empire. His brother was the historian and politician Julius Brutzkus.
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Ke Shaomin
1850 - 1933 (83 years)
Ke Shaomin , courtesy name Fengsun , also known by his art name Liaoyuan , was a Chinese historian from Jiaozhou, Shandong. He is most known for writing the New History of Yuan, one of the Twenty-Five Histories, and helping to lead the compilation of the Draft History of Qing. He was a secretary in the Qing dynasty court in its final years.
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Ignaz Jastrow
1856 - 1937 (81 years)
Ignaz Jastrow was a German economist and historian. Biography He was educated at the universities of Breslau, Berlin, and Göttingen. He became a university docent at Berlin in 1885 and was Leopold von Ranke's assistant in historical work. In 1904 he pursued industrial investigations in the United States, and in 1905 became professor of Administrative Science at Berlin. One daughter, Elisabeth Jastrow, was a classical archaeologist; the other Beate Jastrow Hahn, was an accomplished horticulturalist and author of 5 books. His granddaughter, Cornelia Oberlander was a highly respected landscape ...
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Hector Menteith Robertson
1905 - 1984 (79 years)
Hector Menteith Robertson was an economic historian who held the positions of Jagger Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town and president of the Economic Society of South Africa . He was also an editor and frequent contributor to the South African Journal of Economics.
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R. G. D. Allen
1906 - 1983 (77 years)
Sir Roy George Douglas Allen, CBE, FBA was an English economist, mathematician and statistician, also member of the International Statistical Institute. Life Allen was born in Worcester and educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester, from which he won a scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He gained a First Class Honours in Mathematics, ranking top of his year as the Senior Wrangler.
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Paul Cootner
1930 - 1978 (48 years)
Paul Harold Cootner was a financial economist noted for his book The Random Character of Stock Market Prices. Cootner was born in Logansport, Indiana. He attended the University of Florida, where he earned bachelor's and master's degree. He received a PhD in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953.
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George E. Barnett
1873 - 1938 (65 years)
George Ernest Barnett was an American economist. He was a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University from 1911 to 1938. In 1932, he served as president of the American Economic Association. External links
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William Henry Chaloner
1914 - 1987 (73 years)
William Henry Chaloner was an English social and economic historian who was Editor and Treasurer of the Chetham Society and Editor of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. Life Chaloner was Professor of Economic History at the University of Manchester.
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Leverett S. Lyon
1885 - 1959 (74 years)
Leverett Samuel Lyon was an American economist, lawyer and business executive, known for his works on education, government, marketing, and economic life, and particularly on the National Recovery Administration.
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David Dodd
1895 - 1988 (93 years)
David LeFevre Dodd was an American educator, financial analyst, author, economist, and investor. In his student years, Dodd was a and colleague of Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business School. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 almost wiped out Graham, who had started teaching the year before at his alma mater, Columbia. The crash inspired Graham to search for a more conservative, safer way to invest. Graham agreed to teach with the stipulation that someone take notes. Dodd, then a young instructor at Columbia, volunteered. Those transcriptions served as the basis for a 1934 book Security Analysis, which galvanized the concept of value investing.
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Carl Snyder
1869 - 1946 (77 years)
Carl Snyder was an American economist and statistician. Although he attended the University of Iowa and studied in Paris, he was chiefly self-taught. He began as a journalist; at the age of 20, he was editor of the Council Bluffs Nonparell, later writing editorials for The Washington Post. Snyder was also something of a science writer, authoring popular articles in magazines such as McClure's and the Fortnightly Review about, for example, Jacques Loeb's experiments on the nature of living tissue. He was a president of the American Statistical Association, a Fellow of the American Association ...
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Lloyd Mints
1888 - 1989 (101 years)
Lloyd Wynn Mints was an American economist, notable for his contributions to the quantity theory of money. Biography Born in South Dakota, Lloyd Mints moved with his family in 1888 to Missouri and then in 1901 to Boulder, Colorado. He received from the University of Colorado his bachelor's degree in 1914 and master's degree in 1915. He was a secondary school teacher in Cripple Creek, Colorado from 1915 to 1917 and then moved to Washington, D.C. as an analyst in a federal office. In 1918 he was transferred to Chicago. In 1919 Mints enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where he was assigned to teach undergraduate courses.
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Chester W. Wright
1879 - 1966 (87 years)
Chester Whitney Wright was an American economic historian, and Professor at the University of Chicago, known for his works on the economic history of the United States. Biography Wright studied at the Harvard University, where he obtained his AB in 1901, his AM in 1902, and his PhD in 1906 with the thesis, entitled "Wool-growing and tariff: A Study in the Economic History of the United States" under Frank William Taussig.
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Harry Gunnison Brown
1880 - 1975 (95 years)
Harry Gunnison Brown was a Georgist economist teaching at Yale in the early 20th century. Paul Samuelson named Brown in a list of "American saints in economics" that included only 6 other economists born after 1860.
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Clair Wilcox
1898 - 1970 (72 years)
Clair Wilcox was an American economist. He was on the faculty of Swarthmore College from 1927 to 1968. He chaired the International Trade Conference, which resulted in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
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