Lawrence Klein, 93, pioneer of economic forecasting

This final note about economic predictions and the man who won a Nobel Prize for making them.

Economist Lawrence Klein predicted that the U.S. economy would roar back after World War II. He tutored Jimmy Carter on economics during Carter’s presidential campaign and Klein’s models were used to predict GDP, exports, and all sorts of things that influence the world we live in.

In 1976 he told People Magazine, “If you are a technician and are asked for help, it is a social obligation of citizenship to give it.”

Klein died Sunday, and he was 93. Those of us who study all these bits of data … owe him a great debt.