Hendrik S. Houthakker

Hendrik Samuel "Hank" Houthakker (December 31, 1924 – April 15, 2008) was a Dutch Jewish-born American economist. Houthakker was born in Amsterdam. His father was a prominent art dealer. As a teenager he lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and, according to an interview he gave to the Valley News, was once arrested by the Gestapo but escaped and was sheltered for some months by a Roman Catholic family. He completed his graduate w... more

Hendrik Samuel "Hank" Houthakker (December 31, 1924 – April 15, 2008) was a Dutch Jewish-born American economist. Houthakker was born in Amsterdam. His father was a prominent art dealer. As a teenager he lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and, according to an interview he gave to the Valley News, was once arrested by the Gestapo but escaped and was sheltered for some months by a Roman Catholic family. He completed his graduate work at the University of Amsterdam in 1949. He taught at Stanford University from 1954 to 1960 and then completed the rest of his career at Harvard University. Houthakker served on President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers from 1969 to 1971. Houthakker's contributions to economic theory have been summarized by Pollak (1990). He is particularly well known for the Strong Axiom of Revealed Preference, to which his name is often attached (see Houthakker 1950). This paper reconciles Paul Samuelson's revealed preference approach to demand... less