When he was young, Leontif was persecuted by the Communist Checka because he campaigned for academic autonomy and freedom of speech. He was a professor of economics at Harvard University from the '30's through the '70's. Leontief used the Harvard Mark II to analyze statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Mr. Leontief won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1973.
Now, for some reason he is a cult figure. The most important book written about him cannot be obtained. It is "A Linear Programming Solution To Dynamic Leontief Type Models" by Harvey M. Wagner (1954). Wagner (pictured below left) wrote this an an article in the April 3, 1957 issue of Management Science, pp. 234-254 when he was a Professor of Business Administration and Operations Research at the University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill.
"And Then There Were None" is an article which was written by Harvey Wagner (2002) "Operations Research", Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 217-226. . This paper was a commentary on why the development of the field of inventory theory had done little to improve the practice of inventory control. He made a plea for data-driven robust approaches that can generate insights into the tradeoffs that inventory managers must make.
HARVEY M. WAGNER can be reached at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514, hmwagner@email.unc.edu
While working at RAND, he wrote his doctoral thesis titled "Statistical Management of Inventory Systems" (1952)
There is only one available written by Michael McLure and John Cunningham Wood ()Dec. 14, 2001) entitled: "Wassily Leontief: Critical Assessments of Leading Economists." This book costs $1,395.00 at Amazon.
What is so important about this writer? He analyzes the economics of immigration. In 1986 he wrote "The Future Impact of Automation on Workers." There is only one copy of this book in stock at Amazon and it costs $100.00.
"Wassily W. Leontief, Leonid V. Katrovich, Tjalling C. Koopmans and J. Richard N. Stone (Pioneering Papers oof the Nobel Memorial Laureats in Economics) by Hower R. Vane and Chris Mulhearn (April 9 2009) for $350.00 at Amazone.