Kenneth Sokoloff

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Kenneth Sokoloff
UCLA
Doctoral advisorRobert Fogel

Kenneth Lee Sokoloff (July 27, 1952 – May 21, 2007) was an American economic historian who was broadly interested in the interaction between initial factor endowments, institutions, and economic growth.[1] In particular, he examined the influence of factor endowments on economic development in the New World[2][3] and the role of 19th century United States patent law in encouraging innovation.[4]

Career and personal life

Born in

Los Angeles, California on May 21, 2007.[5]

Kenneth grew up in Silver Spring Maryland. He had a bone disease that was kept in submission by very expensive medications and transfusions, eventually leading to liver cancer and death. Despite his infirmity, he had an active and full life. His father was a famous scientist, Louis Sokoloff, who did pioneering work in brain metabolism, which led to the invention of PET scans.

Academic Work

In a series of influential papers coauthored with

colonies[2] and of New World countries[3] can be explained through differences in initial endowments of factors including human capital and levels of inequality. Moreover, Sokoloff and Engerman theorized that initial levels of wealth and political power inequality led to the development of institutions that perpetuated these inequalities, furthering their deleterious impact on long run economic growth.[3]
In Sokoloff and Engerman's paper "Institutions, Factors, Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World," they outlined their theories about the effects of wealth, human capital, and political power disparity on economic growth. They maintained that these elements were fundamental in deciding how the United States and Canada developed differently from other New World colonies. They emphasized how, in contrast to colonies that relied on slave labor and saw extremely unequal distributions of wealth, human capital, and political power—particularly along racial lines—small family farms in the United States and Canada that produced grains contributed to a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. They also talked on the problem of educational disparity in the nations of Latin America. These nations' governments needed literacy even though they did not provide enough money for public schooling. Low literacy rates were caused by this lack of investment, and voting rates were affected. Thus, Sokoloff and Engerman contended that inadequate educational establishments could considerably impede economic advancement.

Sokoloff and his coauthors also sought to understand the relationship between economic institutions and technological innovation. In particular, Sokoloff stressed the importance of US patent institutions in fostering innovation by entrepreneurs. For instance, with Zorina Khan, Sokoloff examined the careers of 160 "great inventors" credited with significant technological discoveries during the early American industrialization. In contrast to previous findings, Sokoloff and Khan found that these inventors were active entrepreneurs who responded systematically to market incentives.[4] On the other hand, Sokoloff, with Naomi Lamoreaux, found that over time the capital requirements associated with invention became prohibitively high, leading to firms taking over much of the innovative activity that was previously undertaken by individual entrepreneurs.[6]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c UCLA Center 2007
  2. ^ a b Engerman and Sokoloff 1994
  3. ^ a b c Engerman and Sokoloff 2002
  4. ^ a b Khan and Sokoloff 1993
  5. ^ Creswell 2007
  6. ^ Lamoreaux and Sokoloff 2005

References

  • Creswell, Julie. Kenneth Sokoloff, 54, Economist, Is Dead.
    New York Times
    . May 24, 2007. Accessed May 1, 2008.
  • Engerman, Stanley and Sokoloff, Kenneth. 'Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development Among New World Economies'. NBER Working Paper No. 9529. September 2002.
  • Engerman, Stanley and Sokoloff, Kenneth. 'Factor Endowments: Institutions and Differential Paths of Growth Among New World Economics: A View from Economic Historians of the United States.' NBER Historical Working Paper No. 66. November 1994.
  • Khan, Zorina and Sokoloff, Kenneth. ' 'Schemes of Practical Utility: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Among 'Great Inventors' in the United States, 1790–1865.' Journal of Economic History. vo. 53, no. 2, pp. 289–307. June 1993.
  • Lamoreaux, Naomi and Sokoloff, Kenneth. 'The Decline of the Individual Inventor: A Schumpeterian Story?'. NBER Working Paper No. 11654. September 2005.
  • UCLA Center for Economic History. 'Kenneth L. Sokoloff'. May 30, 2007. Accessed May 1, 2008.
  • David Eltis; Frank D. Lewis; Kenneth L. Sokoloff (2004). Slavery in the Development of the Americas. Cambridge University Press.
    ISBN 9780521832779
    .
  • ISBN 978-1-107-00955-4
    .

External links
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