STOLPER, Wolfgang F(riedrich) 1912-2002

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born May 13, 1912, in Vienna, Austria; died from complications due to heart disease April 1, 2002, in Ann Arbor, MI. Economist, educator, and author. Stolper is best known as the coauthor, along with economist Paul Samuelson, of the important Stolper-Samuelson economic theory. After studying at the universities of Berlin, Bonn, and Zurich in the early 1930s, Stolper and his family came to the United States, where he completed his education at Harvard University, earning a Ph.D. in 1938. His teaching career also began at Harvard, where he was an instructor and tutor from 1936 to 1941 before moving on to Swarthmore College as an assistant and then associate professor of economics during the 1940s. After joining the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1949, Stolper remained at that university for the rest of his career, becoming a professor of economics in 1954 until his retirement in 1983. Stolper devised his famous theory early in his career; it asserts that while international trade can have positive economic benefits for nations overall, it can also cause wages for many workers to go down. In addition to this still-widely accepted theory, Stolper was also interested in the economies of Germany and developing nations such as Nigeria and Tunisia, and he was the author of such books as Structure of the East Germany Economy, Germany between East and West, and Planning without Facts. Besides his work as an economist, Stolper was also an accomplished pianist.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Detroit Free Press, April 4, 2002.

Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2002, p. B17.

New York Times, April 4, 2002, p. A21.

Washington Post, April 6, 2002, p. B7.