Schultz, Theodore William (1902-1998), an American economist, claimed that investing in human beings was the only solution to the problem of poverty. Schultz believed that agriculture was the foundation of all other economic growth, and that the people who worked in agriculture were fundamental to its development. He put forward the theory of human capital, which showed that it was as profitable to invest in workers’ education as it was to invest in machinery. Schultz received half of the Nobel Prize for economic sciences in 1979 for his research into the economic problems of developing countries. Throughout his career, Schultz visited many developing countries, always preferring to talk directly to the people in the rural communities, rather than rely on information given by academics or government officials. He shared the Nobel Prize with Sir Arthur Lewis (see Lewis, Sir Arthur ).
Schultz was born in Arlington, South Dakota. He studied agriculture at South Dakota College and economics at the University of Wisconsin. Schultz taught at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University) from 1930 to 1943, and then at the University of Chicago until 1972. During his time as head of the economics department at the University of Chicago, he helped to make it into one of the best academic centers in the United States. His books include Economic Growth and Agriculture (1968) and Investment in Human Capital (1971).
