Award for an Activist

Since it was first awarded in 1969 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Prize for economics has gone mostly to denizens of the dismal science's ivory tower. But this year, the $121,000 tax-free prize was awarded to a Russian-born Harvard professor whose theoretical constructs, practical applications of complex statistics and passionate devotion to controversial causes have kept him in the public eye. He is Wassily Leontief, 67, and over the years he has helped formulate or strongly supported proposals for world disarmament, George McGovern's propositions for income redistribution, and even a plan to solve New York City's growing trash problem by levying a heavy tax on every disposable commodity from glass bottles to plastic wrap.

Though such direct involvement in public issues is unusual for an academic economist, it flows quite naturally from Leontief's most important achievement: the development of "input-output" analysis. Leontiefs big contribution was devising the formulas through which economists can determine with great precision how changes in one sector of the economy (inputs) will affect the performance of other sectors (outputs). Building on his pioneering work, Government economists now compile a huge statistical grid showing how much each economic sector buys and sells from every other major sector. Using the chart, they can, for example, calculate how much a decision to slow the building of barracks will reduce the sales not only of the paint industry but also of the chemical firms from which it gets its pigment. Also, planners can decide what changes in the tax structure might increase employment in the shipping industry or promote the construction of boxcars. Explains Leontief in his high-pitched, heavily accented English: "When you make bread, you need eggs, flour and milk. And if you want more bread, first you must get more eggs. There are similar cooking recipes for all the industries in the economy."

Born in St. Petersburg in 1906, Leontief studied at the University of Leningrad before his family fled Communism. He earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Berlin, and in 1931 joined the faculty at Harvard. Among his students in 1935 was Paul Samuelson, the M.I.T. professor who won the second Nobel economics prize in 1970. Besides Leontief and Samuelson, Harvard's Simon Kuznets--also a Russian emigre--won the award in 1971, and Harvard's Kenneth J. Arrow shared it in 1972. Cracked Leontief: "Do you think there should be an antitrust investigation?"

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