Kenneth J. Arrow, the youngest economist ever to be awarded a Nobel (jointly with John R. Hicks) for “for their pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory”, died aged 95. Arrow, undoubtedly one of the most brilliant minds of recent times, is considered a founding influence of several sub-fields of Economics and among the architects of the advancement of Economics as a science in the twentieth century.

Many share the opinion that his ground-breaking contributions to social choice, innovation, health economics and the economics of risk have been even more ground-breaking for the Economics community than his work on general equilibrium theory for which he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in 1972. Arrow is among a selected very few who consistently made it on the bookies’ list to win another Nobel.

I have briefly pondered about writing a piece on his research contributions to make the unbelievable wealth of his ideas accessible to a broader audience. There is, however, no need to reinvent the wheel. My former classmate Kevin Bryan (who btw considers Arrow to only be the second greatest economist of all time), professor at the University of Toronto, and among other things an expert in the history of Economic Thought, started a brilliant mini series of four posts on Ken Arrow today on his blog A Fine Theorem.