Leontief, Wassily W.

Leontief, Wassily W. (1906–  ) economist; born in St. Petersburg, Russia. Emigrating to the U.S.A. in 1931, he joined the faculty at Harvard (1931–75). From 1975 to 1984 he was director of the Institute of Economic Analysis at New York University. His interest was narrowly focused on the development and refinement of input-output analysis. A promoter of the importance of raw data, he used it to show how the economy is broken into sectors; by systematically recording the flows of goods and services among industries, he explained their interrelationships. He received, among other honors, the Nobel Prize in economics (1973).