KANTOROVICH, LEONID

KANTOROVICH, LEONID (1912–1986), Soviet mathematician and economist, joint winner of the Nobel award for economics in 1975. A member of the Soviet Academy from 1958, he was also a winner of the Stalin (1949) and Lenin (1965) Prizes. He was a professor at Leningrad University in 1934–60. However, his position was weakened during the last years of Stalin's life, and his methods were criticized as "bourgeois science." His applications of mathematical methods to economic planning were not favored by the Soviet leadership. However after 1953, he was again recognized and became a professor at Leningrad University, and at the Moscow Institute for Management of the People's Economy, apart from teaching in the Novosibirsk Mathematics Institute. The Nobel award called him "the leading representative of the mathematics school in Soviet research" and noted that in his book The Best Use of Economic Resources, he analyzed conditions for efficiency in an economy as a whole and demonstrated the connection between allocation of resources and the process of economic growth. He contended that a deficient Soviet investment policy has failed to achieve optimum economic growth.