Paul Samuelson

American economist (1915–2009)

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Academics rank#203

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Fame67.7
Momentum10.0
Academics rank#203
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Lived 1915–2009, aged 94United States

United States AcademicsAcademic

Wikipedia
81 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1915–2009
Aged 94
Awards
11
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

The first American to win the Nobel in economics, he turned the field into mathematics and wrote the textbook that taught most of the profession how to think — selling over four million copies across four decades.

Biography

About

Born May 15, 1915, Samuelson came of age convinced that mathematics was the "natural language" for economists, a belief he formalized in Foundations of Economic Analysis. In 1948 he published Economics: An Introductory Analysis, the second American textbook to explain Keynesian principles — it became the best-selling economics text of all time. He advised Kennedy and Johnson, consulted for the Treasury and Budget Bureau, and spent years sparring in Newsweek with Milton Friedman, the two economists representing opposite poles: Samuelson the self-described "Cafeteria Keynesian," Friedman the mon…

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