Tinbergen was the eldest of five children of Dirk Cornelis Tinbergen and Jeannette van Eek. His brotherNikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen would also win a Nobel Prize (forphysiology, during 1973) for his work inethology, while his youngest brotherLuuk would become a famousornithologist. Jan and Nikolaas Tinbergen are the only siblings to have both won Nobel Prizes.[5]
After graduating, Tinbergen fulfilled his community service in the administration of a prison in Rotterdam and at the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) in The Hague. He then returned to theUniversity of Leiden and in 1929 defended hisPhD thesis titled "Minimumproblemen in de natuurkunde en de economie" (Minimisation problems in Physics and Economics).[8] This topic was suggested by Ehrenfest and allowed Tinbergen to combine his interests in mathematics, physics, economics and politics. At that time, CBS established a new department of business surveys and mathematical statistics, and Tinbergen became its first chairman, working at CBS until 1945. Access to the vast CBS data helped Tinbergen in testing his theoretical models. In parallel, starting from 1931, he was professor of statistics at theUniversity of Amsterdam, and in 1933 he was appointed associate professor of mathematics and statistics at TheNetherlands School of Economics, Rotterdam, where he stayed until 1973.[6][7]
From 1929 to 1945 he worked for theDutch statistical office and served as consultant at theEconomic and Financial Organization of theLeague of Nations (1936–1938). In 1945 he became the first director of theNetherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis and left this position in 1955 to focus on education. He spent one year as a visiting professor at theHarvard University and then returned to the Dutch Economic Institute (the successor of the Netherlands School of Economics). In parallel, he provided consulting services to international organizations and governments of various developing countries, such as United Arab Republic, Turkey, Venezuela, Surinam, Indonesia and Pakistan.[6][7][9]
MinisterPronk, Tinbergen and De Seynes at an economy symposium in The Hague, 23 May 1975
For many, Jan Tinbergen became known for the so-called 'Tinbergen Norm' often discussed long after his death. There is no written work of Tinbergen in which he himself states it formally.[16] It is generally believed to be the principle that, if the ratio between the greatest and least income exceeds 5, it becomes disadvantageous for the societal unit involved. Tinbergen himself discussed some technicalities of a five-to-one income distribution ratio in an article published in 1981.[17] Apart from specifics about a five-to-one ratio, it is true in general that Tinbergen's grand theme wasincome distribution and the search for an optimal social order.
In his work on macroeconomic modelling and economic policy making, Tinbergen classified some economic quantities astargets and others asinstruments.[19] Targets are those macroeconomic variables the policy maker wishes to influence, whereas instruments are the variables that the policy maker can control directly. Tinbergen emphasized that achieving the desired values of a certain number of targets requires the policy maker to control an equal number of instruments. This is known as theTinbergen Rule.[20]
Tinbergen's classification remains influential today, underlying the theory of monetary policy used bycentral banks. Many central banks today regard theinflation rate as their target; the policy instrument they use to control inflation is the short-terminterest rate.[21]
Business Cycles in the United States, 1919–1932, Geneva, 1939 and New York, 1968.
An econometric approach to business cycle problems. In:Impasses économiques; 2; Actualités scientifiques et industrielles,ISSN0365-6861; 525. Paris, 1937.
About Tinbergen
Acocella, Nicola, Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni (2006),Tinbergen and Theil meet Nash: controllability in policy games, in:Economics Letters, 90(2): 213–218.
Acocella, Nicola, Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni and Hughes Hallett, A. [2010],Policy games, policy neutrality and Tinbergen controllability under rational expectations, in:Journal of Macroeconomics, 32(1): 55–67.
Acocella, Nicola Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni and Hughes Hallett, A. [2011],Tinbergen controllability and n-player LQ-games, in:Economics Letters, 113: 32–4.
