Tjalling Charles Koopmans was a Dutch-born economist who worked with the Cowles Commission at the University of Chicago from 1944 to 1955 (in 1949 he was director of research), and then a professor of economics at Yale University till 1981, at which t ime he retired. He was president of the American Economic Association in 1981. Before his work at the Cowles Commission, Koopmans worked as a statistician at the Combined Shipping Adjustment Board in Washington. It was during this time that he, in his desire to minimize transportation costs, developed the technique now known as "linear programming". Kantorovich also did very similar work and thus, it would be more accurate to ascribe the birth of linear programming to both of these men. He and Leon id Kantorovich won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1975 "for their contributions to the theory of optimal allocation of resources." Koopmans is most known for his applications of mathematical statistics to economics.

Works by Tjalling Charles Koopmans:

• Exchange Ratios Between Cargos on Various Routes (Non-Refrigerating Dry Cargoes), Scientific Papers
  
• Optimum Utilization of the Transportation System, Supplement to Econometrica
  Scientific Papers of Tjalling C. Koopmans
  
• Three Essays on the State of Economic Science