2007Economist Ragnar Nurkse - Centenary Of His Birth - Set

Ragnar Nurkse is beyond doubt the only economist of Estonian descent with a truly international reputation and apparently also the internationally best known Estonian savant of all times. Ragnar Nurkse was born on 5 October 1907 in Käru. He completed the course of the Tallinn Cathedral School in 1926 and six years later graduated as an economist from Edinburgh University. In 1934–45 he worked at the Secretariat of the League of Nations, publishing in 1944 a text that soon became classical, International Currency Experience: Lessons of the Inter-War Period, a thorough analysis of international financial relations between the two world wars. This paper played an enormous role in building up the Bretton Woods international monetary management system. In 1947 Ragnar Nurkse was elected full professor of Columbia University. His second classical work, Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries, appeared in 1953. Ragnar Nurkse died on 6 May 1959 in Switzerland and is buried in Vevey. A memorial stone will be inaugurated at Ragnar Nurkse’s birthplace in Käru on 5 October.