Kuznets was born in Kharkov, Ukraine, in 1901. He emigrated to the United States, and was awarded his doctorate in economics from the University of Columbia in 1926. He was a member of the National Institute for Economic Research and at the same time served as professor of economics at Johns Hopkins and Harvard universities.

Simon Kuznets was awarded the Nobel prize for economics in 1971 “for his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth, which has led to new and deeper insight into the economic and social structure and process of development.”

Kuznets is thought to be one of political economics’ chief historians. He studied economic growth from the middle of the nineteenth century, while revealing the amazing complications of economic periodicity. Kuznets also defined national income and the methods he developed are in use the world over.

When he died in 1985, Kuznets was eulogized by the eminent economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who said, “When we talk about gross national product, national income, their components and the policies leading up to them, we are talking about structures created by Kuznets”.