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Prof. J. TlNfiÊI^Gfér*
2566 XD DEN HAAG, May 8, 1989
HAVIKLAAN 31
TELEFOON 64 46 30

Professor Karl-Göran Maler
Secretary of the Prize Committee
for Economie Sciences
Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien

Dear Professor Maler,
I want to repeat my suggestion of several years ago to consider as a
candidate for the prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel
Professor Henry Theil, born 1924 in Amsterdam and now teaching at the
University of Florida, USA (Graduate School of Business Administration).
His address is: 315 New Business Building, Gainsville, FL 32611, USA.
Professor Theil made several imaginative contributions to the methods of
testing economic relations (two-stage and three-stage least squares),
to the theory of economic policy (using quadratic utility functions in
order explicitly to express targets) and to evaluate the forecasts made
with the aid of econometric models. He introduced the concept of certainty
equivalence and applied it to problems of optimal decision making. He also
studied the information approach to evaluation of forecasts. He applied his
concepts both to public and to private decision making.
The number of articles he wrote is very large, but a better survey of his
work may be obtained from the list of the books he wrote, several of them
in collaboration with his students or, sometimes, his colleagues (see
Annex). I hope that the Prize Committee is prepared to consider this
condidate.
Thanking you in advance, I remain,

Yours sincerely.

(Jan Tinbergen)

E n d . : Annex

Prof. J. T I N B E R G E N
DEN HAAG,

^ ^ y 8,

1989

HAVIKLAAN 31

Professor Karl-Goran Maler

Annex
Books bij Henry Theil
De invloed van de voorraden op het consumentengedrag (The influence of
stocks on consumer behaviour), Dissertation, University of
Amsterdam, 1951
Linear Aggregation of Economic Relations, North Holland Publishing Co.,
Amsterdam 1954
Economic Forecasts and Policy, North Holland Publ.Co., Amsterdam 1958
Optimal Decision Rules for Government and Industry, North Holland Publ.Co.,
Amsterdam 1964
Applied Economic Forecasting, North Holland Publ.Co., Amsterdam, 1956
Applied Demand Analysis, Ballingen Publ.Co., Cambridge, MA, 198?
Advances in Econometrics, International Evidence on Consumption Patterns,
Jai Press Inc., Greenwich, CT, 1989.