Ragnar Frisch
Ragnar Frisch received the 1969 prize in Economic Sciences. This profile brings together the official award record and attributed background on the economist’s work and career.
Personal and professional profile
- Name
- Ragnar Frisch [1]
- Full name
- Ragnar Frisch [2]
- Birth date
- 1895-03-03 [2]
- Birthplace
- Oslo, Norway [2]
- Education
- University of Oslo [3]
- Fields / occupation
- economist; university teacher; econometrician [3]
- Prize
- Economic Sciences · 1969 [2]
- Research recognized
- for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes [2]
- Prize share
- 1/2 [2]
- Affiliation at the award
- University of Oslo [2]
- Death date
- 1973-01-31 [2]
- Institutions in career record
- University of Oslo [3]
Research, education and career background
Ragnar Anton Kittil Frisch (3 March 1895 – 31 January 1973) was an influential Norwegian economist and econometrician known for being one of the major contributors to establishing economics as a quantitative and statistically informed science in the early 20th century. He coined the term econometrics in 1926 for utilising statistical methods to describe economic systems, as well as the terms microeconomics and macroeconomics in 1933, for describing individual and aggregate economic systems, respectively. He was the first to develop a statistically informed model of business cycles in 1933. Later work on the model, together with Jan Tinbergen, won the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969. [4]
Frisch became dr.philos. with a thesis on mathematics and statistics at the University of Oslo in 1926. After his doctoral thesis, he spent five years researching in the United States at the University of Minnesota and Yale University. After teaching briefly at Yale from 1930–31, he was offered a full professorship in economics, which he declined after pressures by colleagues to return to the University of Oslo. After returning to Oslo, Frisch was first appointed by the King-in-Council as Professor of Economics and Statistics at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo (then the Royal Frederick University) in 1931, before becoming leader of the newly founded Institute of Economics at the University of Oslo in 1932. He remained at the University of Oslo until his retirement in 1965. [4]
Frisch was one of the founders of the Econometric Society in 1930, and edited the journal Econometrica for its first 21 years. He has given name to the Frisch Medal, which is awarded every year by the Econometric Society for the best paper in econometrics published in the last five years, as well as the Frisch-centre for Applied Economic Analysis at the University of Oslo. The Grand Auditorium at the Institute of Economics, University of Oslo also bears his name. [4]
Selected introductory text by Wikipedia contributors — Ragnar Frisch, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Official facts are cited separately.
Award and academic affiliation
The official Nobel record dates the Economic Sciences award to 1969 and lists University of Oslo as the affiliation at the time. [2]
An affiliation attached to an award describes that point in the person’s career; it does not establish a current appointment. [2]
Education and career timeline
Source-supported connections
Frequently asked questions
When did Ragnar Frisch receive the prize in Economic Sciences?
The official award record gives the year as 1969. [2]
Which institution was Ragnar Frisch affiliated with at the time of the Economic Sciences award?
University of Oslo. This is the award-time affiliation. [2]
Ragnar Frisch connection map
Select a node to inspect the relationship and source.
Links retain their source-specific meaning. Award-time affiliations and links to related reading are not claims about current appointments or economic causation.
Sources and review dates
- Nobel Prize — official biography and award record ↗
- Nobel Prize — official biography and award record ↗
- Wikidata background facts (CC0) ↗
- Wikipedia contributors — Ragnar Frisch (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
Reviewed 23 October 2026. Historical dates and award-time affiliations retain their original context. A review date is not an event date. Background sources are identified separately from official records.