jan tinbergen was a dutch economist who won the first nobel memorial prize in economics in 1969 which he shared with ragnar frisch for their work in the development and application of dynamic models for analyzing economic processes tinbergen was one of the first economists to apply math to economics and is considered a pioneer in the economics field as well as in econometrics 
early life and educationborn in the hague in the netherlands in 1903 tinbergen attended the university of leyden and defended his ph d thesis in 1929 on minimum problems in physics and economics a thesis that allowed him to engage a cross disciplinary approach to his further research in mathematics physics economics and politics 12he joined the netherlands central bureau of statistics performing research on new business cycles a position in government that he held until 1945 during that period he also became a professor of mathematics and statistics at the university of amsterdam and at the netherlands school of economics during that time from 1936 to 1938 tinbergen was also a consultant to the league of nations filling positions in government and education simultaneously 12in 1945 he became the first director of the netherlands central planning bureau he left this position in 1955 to focus on education and spent a year at harvard university he also served as an economic consultant to a host of developing nations including the united arab republic turkey and venezuela 2jan tinbergen died where he was born the hague in 1994 3notable accomplishmentstinbergen is most noted for his contributions to econometrics and macroeconomic modeling tinbergen helped develop the theory of underlying econometrics and the use of statistics to test economic theories an innovator in macro econometric modeling tinbergen developed multi equation models of national economies that were a precursor to today s computer driven economic forecasts some of tinbergen s most important works include statistical testing of business cycles 1938 econometrics 1942 and income distribution 1975 he produced the first comprehensive macro econometric models originally for the netherlands and then for the united kingdom and the united states his macro econometric models focused on business cycles and economic development tinbergen viewed the goal of macroeconomic policy as maximizing social welfare subject to the constraints of technology resources and political feasibility from his models he also developed guidelines and recommendations for applying econometrics to policymaking understanding these types of models can help policymakers aim for economic targets that are related to the policy instruments they control this includes the identification of targets and instruments known as the tinbergen rule this is the idea that governments must use multiple policy instruments if they want to impact multiple policy targets if policymakers have certain targets they wish to reach they must have an equal number of instruments that they control in order to effectively direct policy towards the targets throughout his career tinbergen was also interested in the issues of income distribution in an economy and the phrase tinbergen norm arose from a theory he pursued in which a larger than five to one gap between the lowest income and the highest income will lead to serious social conflict 