{"id":107045,"date":"2019-12-10T15:39:01","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T14:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=107045"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:41:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:41:22","slug":"these-are-the-tangible-memories-of-jan-tinbergen-fifty-years-after-his-nobel-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2019\/12\/10\/these-are-the-tangible-memories-of-jan-tinbergen-fifty-years-after-his-nobel-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"These are the tangible memories of Jan Tinbergen, fifty years after his Nobel Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday 10 December it is exactly fifty years since Jan Tinbergen received the very first Nobel Economics Prize. Searching for traces of Rotterdam\u2019s most famous economist, using a photo album, thousands of sheets of paper and the ticket that Tinbergen used to travel through Stockholm in the week of the award ceremony.<\/p>\n

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Cora Boele of the Stichting Universitair Historisch Kabinet shows some of the adornments Jan Tinbergen wore for the ceremonies of honorary doctorates.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

\u201cThis is my favourite Tinbergen possession\u201d, explained Erwin Dekker, while leafing through his photo album. Dekker is working on a biography about the economist and has received a book from the family with photos of his various visits to India. \u201cLook, there\u2019s even a photo in which he\u2019s planting a tree\u201d, the biographer smiled.<\/p>\n

I asked Dekker, Cora Boele (who manages a sizeable Tinbergen collection for Stichting Universitair Historisch Kabinet) and Pieter van Leeuwen (responsible for digitising his gigantic work archive) to select objects as a starting point for an interview about Jan Tinbergen. It has been fifty years since Rotterdam\u2019s most famous economist received the very first Nobel Economics Prize. We\u2019ve written about him previously; about his significance for Econometrics<\/a>. About lecturers inspired by Tinbergen<\/a>. How the Dies<\/a> and this year\u2019s Nobel Prize<\/a> were all about his ideas. That a new piece of music<\/a> has been named after him. We even discovered that he is indirectly responsible for those confusing building names<\/a> on campus. But what tangible memories can still actually be found some half a century later?<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The photo album that lies between us in the Bayle Building meeting room was a gift from the Indian Statistical Institute, an \u2018international hub where development expertise converges\u2019. Jan Tinbergen travelled across the world after the Second World War as a kind of advisor. \u201cHe didn\u2019t actually do that much in India\u201d, explained Dekker. \u201cBut it was an important place for him, as statistics were already well-organised there.\u201d In the Netherlands he is mainly known for his role as founder of the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB). What is less well-known is that, internationally, he also made all kinds of macro-economic models.<\/p>\n

Idealistic project<\/h2>

He established an equivalent to the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) in Turkey. \u201cTinbergen was sent there in 1959. At that time there was a huge modernisation movement, in the spirit of Atat\u00fcrk, and there was a strong push to link the country with the West.\u201d Following a military coup, his Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis was written into the Turkish constitution, despite domestic opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn hindsight, his international activities appear slightly neo-colonial and sometimes even communist. For instance, he made five-year plans.\u201d The Turkish project was not necessarily a success, explained Dekker. \u201cNot all economies can be planned, such as those of rural areas or the informal economy. It is almost impossible to cover these using models. Support for Tinbergen\u2019s project waned due to political unrest, after which he decided to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018Tinbergen was an anti-colonialist, but he did sometimes get things wrong\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

\u201cTinbergen was an anti-colonialist, but he did sometimes get things wrong\u201d, stated Dekker regarding Tinbergen\u2019s international activities. \u201cFor instance, he was a good friend of politicians who were responsible for police actions. Years later, in an interview, he admitted that he was ashamed that he had never opposed this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dekker thinks you can actually consider his entire life to be an idealistic project. \u201cOf course, he came from The Hague, and the development of his native city into the city of international peace is a fantastic metaphor for his life. These developments ran almost in parallel with the life and work of Jan Tinbergen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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