Angus Stewart Deaton biography
Introduction
Angus Stewart Deaton is a British American economist who was born in 1945. He is known for his contributions to economics, which include consumption, measurement of economic wellbeing and savings brought significant transformations in Economics. In 2015 he was awarded the Nobel peace prize for the economics (Deaton).
Angus received his bachelor’s degree in 1967, and later in 1971, he received a master’s degree and much later in 1974 he received his PH. D all this were in the Economics sector. The above-mentioned academic achievements were awarded to him in the University of Cambridge. From 1976 he lectured at the Bristol University as a lecturer, he did this up to 1983. He later joined Princeton University as a visiting professor (Deaton 312).
Angus made his first contribution to the economics of Developments was the analysis of consumer demand evolution. He was awarded the Frisch Medal in 1978. Deaton became the first person to receive this award. The medal was given to the authors of Econometric whose papers on applied economics were published in the Econometrica Journal of economics.
After receiving this award, Deaton joined hands with a colleague, John Muellbauer, where they worked to come up with a model of consumers demand which was simplified to be able to estimate based on realistic assumptions. The new model was referred to as “An Almost Ideal Demand”. The new model became the point of reference for many economists who felt the urge to look into the aspect of consumer behaviour (Deaton 315).
Deaton found new interests in other areas of economics. He now looked into consumer savings, poverty, measurement of the economic wellbeing. He made a significant discovery in his study on consumer savings. In his discovery, he stated that consumer behaviour doesn’t vary much when the people get hit by income shocks.
Deaton’s other achievements include the following: Deaton became a member of the world bank’s economist advisory council, in 2009 he was the president of the American Economic Association. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in the field of Economics for his study on consumption, poverty and welfare (Srinivasan 157).
Major contributions in Economics
In his research on consumption, Deaton was able to shift the attention of the economist from the analysis of the Economy into measuring the consumers. The analysis measures the food the people ate, their living conditions as well as the services these people used. This moves made other economists be aware of the need to analyses the consumers and not focus entirely on the measuring of the Economy (Deaton).
Deaton was able to measure the Economy something the other economists had failed to do. The other macroeconomist was contented that their research had identified the possible relations that total income and the level of consumption had in the Economy. Deaton ignored this theory and went on to study the behaviour of the households. Deaton was among those that rejected the theories that were in place which based the whole economies behaviour on the decisions taken by an individual consumer who represented the other consumers (Campbell et al. 357).
Deaton’s studies have always been aimed at solving real-life problems. Previously the economist was perceived as joyriders who depended on statistics to justify their models, Deaton changed this view by addressing the problems faced by the households in the country. The research by Deaton proves that economics is important in solving the problems of the social sciences. He was more concerned with the integration of the economic theories into data which could be estimated and not assumed (Campbell et al. 358).
Angus focused on consumer analysis, where he analyzed the expenditure of the households. He made the breakthrough when his article, which was published in the Econometrica, he showed how we could integrate the survey data in place of estimates in the construct models. His model was important as it could be used to analyzing the effects caused by price changes. Moreover, he went on to state that the empirical relationships which were consistent of a particular model of individual household behaviour could be used to analyze the implications of specific policies concerning welfare (Deaton 315).
Deaton was not a person who feared to convey very controversial ideologies. Most people who attended seminars and conferences knew him as being very brave when portraying his views forth. Deaton’s views were always based on the understanding he had gained regarding certain theories. He always had with him the knowledge of empirical proof, supported with relevant knowledge on literature (Deaton).
Conclusion
Deaton was the right economist to award the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015. He had been an outstanding Economist. His work had been influential and had made a lot of contribution to the field of applied economics—his theory of measurement to analyze the issue of consumer behaviour. Deaton was able to accomplish many things in his career, but his greatest achievement was winning the Nobel Prize. His work has become the benchmark for economist around the world.
Works cited list
Campbell, John, and Angus Deaton. “Why is consumption so smooth?.” The Review of
Economic Studies 56.3 (1989): 357-373.00
Deaton, Angus, and John Muellbauer. “An almost ideal demand system.” The American
economic review 70.3 (1980): 312-326.
Deaton, Angus. The analysis of household surveys: a microeconometric approach to
development policy. The World Bank, 1997.
Srinivasan, Thirukodikaval Nilakanta. “Comment on” Counting the world’s poor,” by Angus
Deaton.” The World Bank Research Observer 16.2 (2001): 157-168.