PRIZES: Award for an Activist

Since it was first awarded in 1969 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Prize for economics has gone mostly to denizens of the dismal science's ivory tower. But this year, the $121,000 tax-free prize was awarded to a Russian-born Harvard professor whose theoretical constructs, practical applications of complex statistics and passionate devotion to controversial causes have kept him in the public eye. He is Wassily Leontief, 67, and over the years he has helped formulate or strongly supported proposals for world disarmament, George McGovern's propositions for income redistribution, and...

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