Kuznets, Simon (1901-1985), was an American economist who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in economics. He did important studies of national income, economic cycles, and modern economic growth. Kuznets laid the foundation for modern national income accounting in his National Income and Its Composition, 1919-1938 (1941) and other works. He also found evidence of recurring cycles of economic growth that are 15 to 20 years long. These are called long swings or Kuznets cycles.
Kuznets also studied capital formation, population change, industrial structure, and how invention, innovation, and scientific advancement lead to economic growth. He also identified a pattern called the inverted U hypothesis or Kuznets hypothesis. This pattern consists of a trend away from, and then toward, equal distribution of income over the course of economic growth.
Kuznets was born on April 30, 1901, in Kharkov (also spelled Kharkiv), Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire. He moved to the United States in 1922. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University. He died on July 9, 1985.
