2013 Leontief Prize

2013 Leontief Prize
Awarded to Albert O. Hirschman & Frances Stewart

Dr. Stewart’s presentation focused on her recent scholarship into horizontal inequalities—that is, inequality between groups (ethnic, religious, gender, regional, etc.). Dr. Stewart provided a deeper definition of inequality, emphasizing that it is not only the typical income and wealth inequality that matter, but also access to social services and “social capital,” power influence, and the social recognition afforded to the group within society. Horizontal inequalities can be seen not only as evidence of injustice, but also as a spark for violence.

Dr. Stewart referenced philosophical works on inequalities, concluding that—when extrapolated from the individual to the group—“for most theories of justice, it’s difficult to justify horizontal inequality. It’s much easier to justify some version of vertical inequality because of the effect it has on incentives and growth […].”

Though international studies found no correlation between high rates of vertical inequality and commensurately high rates of violence, Dr. Stewart asserted that there is a relationship when one examines inequality at the group level. Those who fight together are united by a common identity, and motivated to achieve social equality and stave off perceived injustices. Despite this, international policy has largely neglected domestic group inequality.

In concluding her talk, Stewart noted that simultaneous political exclusion and economic exclusion is likely to result in conflict. Thus, there must therefore be a concerted, systematic effort to ensure equality on multiple dimensions within Western societies, within developing countries, and between countries worldwide.

Frances Stewart is professor emeritus of Development Economics at the University of Oxford and was director of Oxford’s Department of International Development and the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security, and Ethnicity (CRISE).

Born in Berlin in 1915, Albert O. Hirschman fled Germany in early 1933 with the rise of Hitler and the tragic death of his father. Still, a love of Goethe and a commitment to cosmopolitan values accompanied Hirschman throughout his life.

That life can be seen as a parable of the horrors and hopes of the twentieth century. What motivated him was a pursuit to understand the world combined with an eagerness to change it. Whether struggling against fascism in Europe—an experience that lay behind his first book, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (1945)—or rolling up his sleeves in Latin America to advise farmers, which influenced the originality of The Strategy of Economic Development (1958), Hirschman sought to balance impassioned observation with critical involvement.

His life would lead him to study in Berlin, Paris, London, and Trieste, where he finished his PhD. Along the way, he fought in the Spanish Civil War, volunteered in the French Army, and worked in Marseilles to help refugees escape the Nazis. A Rockefeller fellowship brought him to Berkeley in 1940, where he met the wife and lifelong partner Sarah. After serving in the US Army, Hirschman moved his family to Washington, DC, where he worked at the Federal Reserve Board, beginning a long career as an economist.

Hirschman trespassed creatively across academic disciplines, perhaps because his university years were brief. He did not get his first university appointment until 1958 at Columbia, and later he moved to Harvard. In 1974, he was appointed professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Yet, ever the economist, he would proceed to write some of the most provocative books in the social sciences, on recurring themes of economic development, political democracy, and the surprising relationships between the two.

Jeremy Adelman is a Princeton historian. His latest book is Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman (Princeton University Press).