Profile Major Works Resources

Hirofumi Uzawa, 1928-2014

Portrait of H. Uzawa

Japanese mathematical economist, Neo-Walrasian theorist with significant contributions to theory of preference and stability theory.  Uzawa was also a developer of optimal growth theory, applied later in his career to environmental problems.

Born in Yonago, Japan, Hirofumi Uzawa studied mathematics at the University of Tokyo. After graduating in 1951, Uzawa remained in Tokyo as a special research student, and was soon drawn into economics by the influence of Japanese Marxists. But Uzawa soon encountered the budding mathematical economics being developed by American Neo-Walrasians.  Uzawa proceeded to Stanford in 1956 as a research associate at the invitation of Kenneth Arrow, joining the Stanford faculty by 1959.  It was in this period where Uzawa made his major contributions to demand theory and Walrasian general equilibrium analysis.  Uzawa credits his celebrated two-sector growth model on the basis of his re-reading of Marx's second volume. 

Uzawa remained at Stanford until 1964, when he joined the University of Chicago, where he produced his major contributions to optimal growth theory. For a year (1966), Uzawa was a fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, during he came up with his "Penrose effect", an outcome of his ruminations on Veblen (the term, named after Edith Penrose, was suggested by Kahn)

In 1968, Uzawa left the US, partly in protest against the Vietnam war, and became a professor at Tokyo University, remaining there until his retirement in 1989.  Practical problems of pollution in Japan drew Uzawa's attention to environmental problems and he developed his theory of "social common capital" already in the early 1970s, which was later applied to macro-environmental problems like climate change.   Uzawa continued to speak and write on environmental problems after his retirement.

 

  

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Major Works of Hirofumi Uzawa

  • "On Preferences and Axioms of Choice", 1956, Annals of Statistical Mathematics.
  • "On the Rational Selection of Decision Functions", 1957, Econometrica.
  • "On the Menger-Wieser Theory of Imputation", 1958, ZfN.
  • Studies in Linear and Non-Linear Programming with K.J.Arrow and Leonid Hurwicz, 1958.
  • "Prices of Factors of Production in International Trade", 1959, Econometrica.
  • "Locally Most Powerful Rank Tests for Two-Sample Problems", 1960, Annals of Mathematical Statistics.
  • "Preference and Rational Choice in the Theory of Consumption", 1960, in Arrow, Karlin and Suppes, editors, Mathematical Models in Social Science.
  • "Walras' Tatonnement in the Theory of Exchange", 1960, RES.
  • "Market Mechanisms and Mathematical Programming", 1960, Econometrica.
  • "Stability and Non-Negativity in a Walrasian Adjustment Process" with H. Nikaido, 1960.
  • "Constraint Qualifications in Non-Linear Programming", with K.J. Arrow and L. Hurwicz, 1961, Naval Research Logistics Quarterly
  • "On a Two-Sector Model of Economic Growth, I", 1961, RES.
  • "Neutral Inventions and the Stability of Growth Equilibrium", 1961, RES.
  • "The Stability of Dynamic Processes", 1961, Econometrica [pdf]
  • "On the Stability of Edgeworth's Barter Process", 1962, IER.
  • "Walras's Existence Theorem and Brouwer's Fixed Point Theorem", 1962, Economic Studies Quarterly.
  • "Aggregative Convexity and the Existence of Competitive Equilibrium", 1962, Economic Studies Quarterly.
  • "Production Functions with Constant Elasticities of Substitution", 1962, RES.
  • "On a Two-Sector Model of Economic Growth, II", 1963, RES.
  • "On Separability in Demand Analysis", with S.M. Goldman, 1964, Econometrica.
  • "On Professor Solow's Model of Technical Progress", 1964, Economic Studies Quarterly.
  • "Optimal Growth in a Two-Sector Model of Capital Accumulation", 1964, RES.
  • "Duality Principles in the Theory of Cost and Production", 1964, IER.
  • "On an Akerman-Wicksellian Model of Capital Accumulation", with T. Yasui, 1964 Economic Studies Quarterly.
  • "Optimum Technical Change in an Aggregative Model of Economic Growth", 1965, IER. [pdf]
  • "Patterns of Trade and Investment in a Dynamic Model of International Trade", with H. Oniki, 1965, RES.
  • "On a Neoclassical Model of Economic Growth", 1966, Economic Studies Quarterly.
  • "Market Allocation and Optimum Growth", Australian EP.
  • "The Penrose Effect and Economic Growth", 1968, Economic Studies Quarterly.
  • "Time Preference, the Consumption Function and Optimum Asset Holdings", 1968, in Wolfe, editor, Value, Capital and Growth.
  • "Time Preference and the Penrose Effect in a Two-Class Model of Economic Growth", 1969, JPE.
  • "Optimum Fiscal Policy in an Aggregative Model of Economic Growth", 1969, in Adelman and Thorbecke, editors, Theory and Design of Economic Development.
  • "On the Integrability of Demand Functions", with L. Hurwicz, 1971, in Preferences, Utility and Demand.
  • "Diffusion of Inflationary Processes in a Dynamic Model of International Trade", 1971, Economic Studies Quarterly.
  • "Towards a Keynesian Model of Monetary Growth", 1973, in Mirrlees and Stern, editors, Models of Economic Growth.
  • "Optimum Investment in Social Overhead Capital", 1974, in Economic Analysis of Environmental Problems.
  • "La theorie economique du capital collectif social", 1974, Cahier d'econometrie et economique.
  • "On the Dynamic Stability of Economic Growth", 1974, in Trade, Stability and Growth.
  • "The Optimum Management of Social Common Capital", 1974, in J. Rothenberg and I. G. Heggie, eds, The Management of Water Quality and the Environment.
  • "Social Stability and Collective Public Consumption", 1974, in R.C.O. Matthews and G.B. Stafford, eds, The Grants Economy and Public Consumption
  • "Optimal Investment in Social Overhead Capital", 1975, in E.S. Mills, editor, Economic Analysis of Environmental Problems. [nber]
  • "Disequilibrium Analysis and Keynes's General Theory", 1976.
  • Preference, Production and Capital: Selected papers of Hirofumi Uzawa., 1988.
  • Optimality, Equilibrium and Growth: Selected papers of Hirofumi Uzawa, 1988.
  • "Rerum Novarum Inverted: Abuses of capitalism and illusions of socialism", 1991, Rivista di Politica Economica
  • "Global Warming Initiatives: The Pacific Rim", 1991, in R. Donrbusch and J.M. Poterba, editors, Global Warming: Economic policy responses.
  • "Imputed Prices of Greenhouse Gases and Land Forests", 1992, Renewable Energy.
  • An Endogenous Rate of Time Preference, the Penrose effect, and dynamic optimality of environmental quality, 1996, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [NAS]
  • Economic Theory and Global Warming, 2003 [pdf]
  • Economic Analysis of Social Common Capital, 2005
  • "Global Warming, Imputed Prices, and Sustainable Development", 2009, Macroeconomic Dynamics [pdf]
  • "Social Common Capital", 2009 (Blue Planet Lecture), [pdf]

 
HET

 

 
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Resources on Hirofumi Uzawa

  • "MD Interview with Hirofumi Uzawa" (by M. Okuno-Fujiwara and Karl Shell), Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2009 [pdf]
  • Uzawa obituary at Japan Times, 2014
  • Uzawa obituary at Asahi
  • Uzawa papers at repec/ideas
  • Citation on induction into NAS.
  • "The Steady State Growth Theory: Understanding Uzawa 1961"  by C.I. Jones and Dean Scrimgeour (2006) [pdf]
  • "On Harrod-Neutral Technical Change: Uzawa Revisited", by Thomas Russell, 2011 [pdf]
  • "Hirofumi Uzawa 1928–2014: A personal tribute" by G.C. Harcrout, 2014, ELRR
  • Hirofumi Uzawa speaking at the New School [video]
  • Wikipedia

 

 
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