Douglass North

Douglass Cecil North (born November 5, 1920) is the co-recipient (with Robert William Fogel) of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economics and the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. North concentrates his studies on the area of Institutional economics and economic history. In the words of the Nobel Committee, North and Fogel were awarded the prize "for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change." Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in General Curriculum-Humanities in 1942 and a Ph.D. in Economics in 1952, and joined the United States Merchant Marine during World War II. Prior to finishing his PhD, North had also been a semi-professional photographer and had worked with Dorothea Lange as well as other notable photographers. He is happily married to Libby Case. He was... full article at wikipedia