Theodore W. Schultz (1966-1967)

Theodore Schultz was professor of economics at University of Chicago. He won the 1979 Nobel Prize for economics for his “analysis of the role of investment in human capital for economic development, particularly in agriculture.” Schultz studied agriculture and economics at South Dakota State before completing his graduate studies in agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating in 1930. For the next 13 years, he taught at Iowa State College, and after the Second World War, he became the chair of economics at the University of Chicago. There, he began work on Human Capital Theory by attempting to explain the fast recovery of postwar Germany and Japan. He illustrated this theory in his book Investment in Human Capital (1971). This work also advocated for the provision of technical training and educational aid over food supplies in foreign countries. In 1960, he became president of the American Economics Association, before retiring in 1970. His other books include Economic Growth and Agriculture (1968) and The Economics of Being Poor (1993). He died in 1998.