Kenneth J. Arrow

Interview

Interview, August 2008

Interview with the 1972 Economics Laureate, Kenneth J. Arrow, 27 August, 2008. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org.

Kenneth Arrow discusses his early education and the appeal of probability theory, his efforts during World War II to improve flight routes by calculating wind patterns (20:26), how the Impossibility Theorem was born (36:15), and why his theories on health “changed the whole texture of how people thought about the problem” (43:15). He also outlines the economics of climate change (51:00) and speculates on the biggest challenges facing economics today (53:25).

To cite this section
MLA style: Kenneth J. Arrow – Interview. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2025. Mon. 15 Dec 2025. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1972/arrow/interview/>

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