Knut Wicksell

Johan Gustaf Knut Wicksell (December 20, 1851 – May 3, 1926) was a Swedish economist of the Stockholm school. He was professor at Uppsala University and Lund University.

He made contributions to theories of population, value, capital and money, as well as methodological contributions to econometrics. His economic contributions would influence both the Keynesian and Austrian schools of economic thought. He was married to the noted feminist Anna Bugge.

Early life

Wicksell was born in Stockholm on December 20, 1851. His father was a relatively successful businessman and real estate broker. He lost both his parents at a relatively early age. His mother died when he was only six, and his father died when he was fifteen. His father's considerable estate allowed him to enroll at the University of Uppsala in 1869 to study mathematics, astronomy and physics.

Education

He received his first degree in two years, and he engaged in graduate studies until 1885, when he received his doctorate in mathematics. In 1887, Wicksell received a scholarship to study on the Continent, where he heard lectures by the economist Carl Menger in Vienna. In the following years, his interests began to shift toward the social sciences, particularly economics.

Lecturer

As a lecturer at Uppsala, Wicksell attracted attention because of his opinions about labour. At one lecture, he condemned drunkenness and prostitution as alienating, degrading, and impoverishing. Although he was sometimes identified as a socialist, his solution to the problem was decidedly Malthusian in advocating birth control, which he would defend to the end of his life. Wicksell has been described as an "ardent neo-Malthusian."