Hirsh Zvi Griliches (/ˈɡrɪlɪkəs/GRIL-i-kəs; 12 September 1930 – 4 November 1999)^[2] was a Lithuanian-born economist atHarvard University. Zvi Griliches's works concerned mostly theeconomics oftechnological change, includingempirical studies ofdiffusion of innovations and the roles of R&D, patents, and education. In 2023, he had 126 publications listed inWeb of Science and aHirsch index of 49, which places him into 2% of the most productive economics professors in the United States.

He was born inKaunas,Lithuania, in anassimilatedAshkenaziJewish family that spokeRussian at home.^[3] DuringWorld War II, he was sent to theDachau concentration camp. In 1947, he emigrated toPalestine, where he served in the prestateIsraeli army, learnedHebrew, passed a high school equivalency exam, and studied for a year atHebrew University. He then moved to the United States, where he earned aB.S. in agricultural economics from theUniversity of California, Berkeley and then a Ph.D. in economics from theUniversity of Chicago, supervised byTheodore Schultz.

In his classic 1957 Ph.D. dissertation,Hybrid Corn: An Exploration in the Economics of Technological Change, published as an article in the October 1957 issue ofEconometrica, Griliches demonstrated that the penetration of corn seeds followed thelogistic curve. It was found later through multiple examples byEdwin Mansfield and other researchers that this is a general rule fortechnological change /diffusion of innovations. The dissertation was one of the first scientific works that treated the development of new technology as an economic phenomenon. Previously, economists had treated it as exogenous.

Most innovations either make production more efficient or improve the quality of goods. The analysis of measurement of the impacts of innovations on economics led Griliches to his fundamental studies ofeconomic growth,productivity,production function,consumption function, measurements of economic input and output,hedonic prices, and their reflection inprice indices.

Griliches also published important works oneconometrics, including distributed lags (time series) and aggregation. He was particularly interested in the measurements of hidden variables.

Griliches served as president of theEconometric Society in 1975 and as president of theAmerican Economic Association in 1993. From 1969 to 1977, he was one of the editors of the journalEconometrica. He served on theStigler Commission in 1961 and theBoskin Commission in 1996, both of which were convened by theUnited States Senate to evaluate the measurement ofinflation.

In 1965, Zvi Griliches won the prestigiousJohn Bates Clark Medal. He was elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965 and to theNational Academy of Sciences in 1975. He was also elected Distinguished Fellow of theAmerican Economic Association, Fellow of theEconometric Society, Fellow of theAmerican Statistical Association, Fellow of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, and Fellow of theAmerican Agricultural Economics Association. He died on November 4, 1999, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Zvi Griliches Research Data Center^[4] was established in his memory at the Samuel Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology in Israel. The Zvi Griliches Excellence Award^[5] was established by theEconomics Education and Research Consortium (EERC) in Russia and other former Soviet Union countries.

The Zvi Griliches Research Seminar in the Economics of Innovation^[6] was held by theBarcelona Graduate School of Economics to promote interactions between academic researchers, innovation policy practitioners, statistical office analysts and Ph.D. students with a general interest in analyzing technological innovation from an economic point of view.

In 2001, in memory of Zvi Griliches, the International Advisory Board of theNew Economic School, with full approval by the entire NES community, decided to establish an annual series of lectures in economics. "The Zvi Griliches Memorial Lectures" are presented by leading scholars and open to everyone.

• Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. "Zvi Griliches's Contributions to the Economics of Technology and Growth."Economics of Innovation and New Technology 13, no. 4 (June 2004): 365–97.

• Zvi Griliches' homepage
• Obituary published in theHarvard Gazette
• Obituary on the University of California website
• A Biographical Memoir by Marc Nerlove
• Zvi Griliches on Diffusion, Lags and Productivity Growth ...Connecting the Dots by Paul A. David
• In Memoriam: Zvi Griliches, 1930–1999 by Manuel Trajtenberg and Ernst R. Berndt
• A tree of Zvi Griliches's students, postdocs, coauthors, and their students
• Marc Nerlove, "Zvi Griliches", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2001)
• Zvi Griliches atFind a Grave

• 1930 births
• 1999 deaths
• 20th-century American economists
• Econometricians
• Jewish American economists
• Jewish American scientists
• Lithuanian emigrants to Mandatory Palestine
• Soviet emigrants to Israel
• Lithuanian Jews
• Israeli emigrants to the United States
• Harvard University faculty
• Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni
• University of California, Berkeley alumni
• University of Chicago alumni
• Fellows of the American Statistical Association
• Fellows of the Econometric Society
• Presidents of the Econometric Society
• Presidents of the American Economic Association
• Distinguished fellows of the American Economic Association
• Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• 20th-century American Jews
• 20th-century statisticians

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