Kenneth Arrow is an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University. He is also a trustee of Economists for Peace and Security. He was a convening lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He served in the government on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers in the 1960s.

Arrow was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972 for his contribution to the general equilibrium theory and welfare economics. To date, he is the youngest person to have received the Nobel award, at the age of 51. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he has received the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal. He received a BS from City College, an MA and PhD from Columbia University, and holds approximately 20 honorary degrees.

Arrow has provided foundational work in many other areas of economics, including endogenous growth theory, social choice theory, decision theory, and the economics of information.  Among Arrow's many important contributions should also be mentioned his development of the theory of uncertainty and its incorporation within the frame of general equilibrium theory and, furthermore, his analysis of the possibilities for decentralized decisions in a society where the price system is fixed by the central authority.

Arrow applied rigorous mathematical methods in his studies of general equilibrium systems. He provided the basis for a radical reformulation of the traditional equilibrium theory. Through this reformulation, which was based on the mathematical theory of convex sets, the general equilibrium theory gained both in generality and in simplicity. The pioneering work done with Gerard Debreu became the starting point for the major part of further research in this field and later in applied general equilibrium modeling.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1972/arrow.html

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