Paul Samuelson

Paul Samuelson received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1970 — the first American to do so. His 1948 "Economics" textbook became the most widely used economics textbook in history, going through 19 editions and selling over 4 million copies. Samuelson mathematized economics, bringing rigorous mathematical methods to areas including consumer theory, welfare economics, and international trade. He developed the Samuelson-Heckscher-Ohlin theorem in trade theory and the efficient market hypothesis precursor. He advised Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Samuelson passed away in 2009. His contributions to finance theory include the first rigorous proof of the random walk property of efficient financial market prices — predating and anticipating the formal development of the efficient market hypothesis by Fama — and influential early writing on warrant pricing that foreshadowed the Black-Scholes model, demonstrating how mathematical methods from physics could be applied to the pricing of contingent claims.