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Bertil Ohlin (April 23, 1899 - August 3, 1979),
was a Sweden|Swedish economist and 1977 Bank of
Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of
Alfred Nobel|Nobel memorial laureate. His name
lives on in the standard mathematical model of
international free trade.

In 1924 Ohlin received his doctorate from
Stockholm University and in 1925 he became a
professor at the University of Copenhagen. In 1929
he debated with John Maynard Keynes, contradicting
the latter's view on the consequences of the heavy
war reparations payments imposed on Germany.
(Keynes predicted a war caused by the burden of
debt, Ohlin thought that Germany could afford the
reparations.) Although Keynes was probably right,
the debate was important in the modern theory of
unilateral international payments.

In 1930 Ohlin succeeded Eli Heckscher, his
teacher, as a professor of economics, at the
Stockholm School of Economics. In 1933 Olin
published a work that made him world renowned,
Interregional and International Trade. In this
Ohlin built an economic theory of international
trade from earlier work by Heckscher and his own
doctoral thesis. It is now known as the
Heckscher-Ohlin model, the standard model
economists use to debate trade theory.

The model was a break-though because it showed how
comparative advantage might relate to general
features of a country's capital and labour, and
how these features might change through time. The
model provided a basis for later work on the
effects of protection on real wages, and has been
fruitful in producing predictions and analysis;
Ohlin himself used the model to derive the
Heckscher-Ohlin theorem, that nations would
specialize in industries most able to utilize
their mix of national resources efficiently.

Later, Ohlin and other members of the "Stockholm
school" extended Knut Wicksell's economic analysis
to produce a theory of the macroeconomy
anticipating Keynesianism.

Ohlin was party leader of the liberal Folkpartiet
from 1944 to 1967, the main opposition party to
the Socialdemokratiska arbetarpartiet|Social
Democrat Governments of the era, and from '44 to
'45 was minister of commerce in the wartime
government. His daughter Anne Wibble, representing
the same party, served as Minister of Finance in
1991-1994.

==See also==
*Liberalism
*Contributions to liberal theory
*List of economics consultancies and think tanks
*Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in
Memory of Alfred Nobel

== Significant Publications ==
* The German Reparations Problem, 1930
* Interregional and International Trade, 1933
* Mechanisms and Objectives of Exchange Controls,
1937

==External links==
*
http://www.nobel-winners.com/Economics/bertil_ohli
n.html Bertil Ohlin
* http://www.ohlininstitutet.org/ Bertil Ohlin
Institute
*
http://www.economyprofessor.com/theorists/bertiloh
lin.php Ohlin's life in economics
*
http://www.geocities.com/gfh_axds_as/zax/ohlin-aut
obio.html pathbreaking contribution to the theory
of international trade and international capital
movements.