Economicas

Autobiography
Wassily Leontieff

I was born August 5, 1906, and spent my childhood and youth in St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) where my father was a professor of economics.* Among my earlyindelible memories are: the country plunged into deep mourning the day of Leo Tolstoy's death; stray bullets whistling by during the first days of the February Revolution; Lenin addressing a mass meetingfrom a high tribune in front of the Winter Palace.

Entered the University of Leningrad in 1921. After studying philosophy, sociology and finally economics, I received the degree of Learned Economistin 1925.

Continued my studies at the University of Berlin with Werner Sombart and Ladislaus Bortiewicz, and received the Ph.D. degree, having submitted a dissertation on the theoretical subject"Wirtschaft als Kreislauf." As member of the staff of the Institute for World Economics at the University of Kiel from 1927 to 1930, engaged in research on derivation of statistical demand and supplycurves. This academic work was interrupted in 1929 by a twelve-month stay in China as advisor to the Ministry of Railroads. Moved to the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York in 1931 and to theDepartment of Economics at Harvard University in 1932. Became Professor of Economics in 1946; organized the Harvard Economic Research Project in 1948, and served as its Director until 1973; have beenChairman of the Harvard Society of Fellows since 1965.

Married Estelle Marks, who is a poet, in 1932. A daughter, Svetlana Alpers, is now Professor of the History of Arts at the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley.

Having come to the conclusion that so-called partial analysis cannot provide a sufficiently broad basis for fundamental understanding of the structure and operation of economicsystems, I set out in 1931 to formulate a general equilibrium theory capable of empirical implementation. Received a research grant for compilation of the first input-output tables of the American...