Hirschman, Albert O(tto) (1915– )

US political economist born in Germany. He was an economist with the Federal Reserve Board 1946–52, advised the government of Columbia 1952–56, and taught at Yale, Harvard, and Columbia universities. He worked at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey 1974–85. In The Strategy of Economic Development 1958, and other works, he rejected a ‘balanced growth’ strategy for countries of the developing world, proposing instead a new model of economic planning – illustrated in his various studies of Latin American nations – that became internationally influential.

Born in Berlin, he studied in Paris, London, and Trieste before going to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1941. He served in the US Army 1943–45.