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Vol. I · 2026
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Science & Academia · USA · Russian Empire

Jacob Marschak

Яков Маршак

Kyiv-born economist who directed research at the Cowles Commission and pioneered information economics

🇺🇸 Fame: USA🇷🇺 Origin: Russian Empire🔗 Connection: Lived under Russian or Soviet rule🗣 Russian: Fluent
JM
Profile #444
ProfessionEconomist
Russian originKiev (Kiev Governorate)Russian Empire
ConnectionLived under Russian or Soviet rule
RussianFluent
CategoryScience & AcademiaTier B
Biography

Jacob Marschak — economist with roots in the Russian Empire

Jacob Marschak (23 July 1898, Kiev – 27 July 1977, Los Angeles) was an economist known for work on the elasticity of demand, early econometrics and choice under uncertainty, and for pioneering information economics. He was director of research at the Cowles Commission from 1943 to 1948 and president of the Econometric Society in 1946. He died shortly before he was due to become president of the American Economic Association.

Russian Connection

Tracing the roots — Kiev (Kiev Governorate)

Born in Kiev (Russian Empire) in 1898 into a Jewish family, the son of a jeweller. A Menshevik as a student, in 1918 he was labour minister in the Terek Soviet Republic. He emigrated to Germany in 1919, moved to Oxford in 1933 and to the United States in 1939.

Family Tree
Subject
Jacob Marschak🇺🇸 USA
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Origin
Kiev (Kiev Governorate)🇷🇺 Russian Empire
Historical context
Russian Empire · c. 1721–1917
Map of the Russian Empire

Kiev (Kiev Governorate). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.

Map: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
Key Achievements

A career defined by ambition

01
Director of research, Cowles Commission for Research in Economics (1943–1948)
02
Pioneered information economics; co-founded team theory with Roy Radner (1972)
03
Teacher of later Nobel laureates Leonid Hurwicz, Harry Markowitz and Franco Modigliani
04
Professor at the New School, Chicago, Yale and UCLA
05
President of the Econometric Society (1946)
Russian diasporaborn in Russia/USSRRussian Empire rootsRussian speaker
Sources