Modeling with Impact

Herbert Scarf

Herbert Scarf (July 25, 1930 - November 15, 2015) was an Emeritus Professor of Economics at Yale University.

He was a member of the American Academy of

Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He served as the president of the Econometric Society in 1983. He received both the Frederick Lanchester Award in 1973 and the John von Neumann Medal in 1983 from the Operations Research Society of America and was elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association in 1991.

After his PhD in mathematics at Princeton University, Scarf worked mostly on applying mathematics to economic and political problems and made some major contributions to operations research (especially on optimal inventory policy) and to economics in the field of general equilibrium theory (especially on stability and computation of general equilibrium, and on indivisibilities). In economics, his most famous contribution is the Scarf algorithm he developed to solve applied general equilibrium models. His work has contributed immensely to the applied (or computable) general equilibrium modeling.

http://news.yale.edu/2015/12/01/memoriam-herbert-scarf-pioneering-economist-and-inspiring-teacher

http://cowles.yale.edu/news/memoriam-herbert-scarf-1930-2015