Simon, Julian Lincoln, 1932-1998

Julian Lincoln Simon (February 12, 1932 – February 8, 1998) was an American economist. He was a professor of economics and business administration at the University of Illinois from 1963 to 1983 before later moving to the University of Maryland, where he taught for the remainder of his academic career. Simon wrote many books and articles, mostly on economic subjects, from an optimistic viewpoint. He is best known for his work on population, natural resources, and immigration. Simon is sometimes associated with cornucopian views and as a critic of Malthusianism. Rather than focus on the abundance of nature, Simon focused on lasting economic benefits from continuous population growth, even despite limited or finite physical resources, primarily by the power of human ingenuity to create substitutes, and from technological progress. He is also known for the famous Simon–Ehrlich wager, a bet he made with ecologist Paul R. Ehrlich. Ehrlich bet that the prices for five metals would increase over a decade, while Simon took the opposite stance. Simon won the bet, as the prices for the metals sharply declined during that decade.