Bertil Ohlin

Bertil Gotthard Ohlin was born on April 23, 1899, in Klippan, Scania. Educated at Lund University, Stockholm University under Eli Heckscher, and Harvard University, he became Professor of Economics at the University of Copenhagen at age twenty-five.

In 1933, Ohlin published his magnum opus, Interregional and International Trade, synthesizing Heckscher's insights into the world-famous Heckscher-Ohlin theorem, which explains how countries export products that intensively utilize their relatively abundant factor of production (labor or capital). Alongside James Meade, he received the 1977 Nobel Prize in Economics. Concurrently, Ohlin was a dominant political leader, serving as Chairman of the Liberal People's Party (Folkpartiet) from 1944 to 1967 and Minister of Commerce.