Nobel Prize Recipient. Gunnar Myrdal, a Swedish economist, received notoriety after he was awarded the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics with Austrian-born British economist, Friedrick Hayek. The two economists received the coveted award, according to the Nobel Prize committee, "for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." Myrdal was a Keynesian economist, a champion of social democracy and the welfare state, whereas Hayek was the first non-Keynesian economist to receive the Nobel Prize, supporting classical liberalism and free-market capitalism. Born Karl Gunnar Pettersson, the oldest of four children, his father changed his and his sibling's surname in 1914 to Myrdahl and eventually to Myrdal. His father Karl Pettersson, was a partner in a construction company, who was often away from home for long periods working. His family moved fourteen times during his school years. After graduating from the Law School of Stockholm University in 1923, he began practicing law while continuing his studies at the university. He received his juris doctor degree in economics in 1927 and was appointed docent in political economy. His PhD thesis was the three-part document, "The Problem of Price Formation under Economic Change," which was later published. From 1925 to 1929, he studied in Germany and Britain, followed by his first trip to the United States from 1929 to 1930 as a Rockefeller Fellow. Upon returning to Europe, he was an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Switzerland for one year. In 1933 he was appointed to the Lars Hierta Chair of Political Economy and Public Finance at the University of Stockholm. From 1934 to 1938, he served in the Swedish Senate as a member of the Social Democratic Party, but resigned to write a book in New York. In 1942, he was re-elected to the Senate. From 1945 to 1947, he was Sweden's Minister of Commerce, a position which he left to accept an appointment as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe until 1957. After studying economics in Asia, he published texts on the subject. In 1961, he returned to a position at the University of Stockholm, starting the Institute for International Economic Studies. During the academic year of 1973 to 1974, he was a visiting Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at Santa Barbara, California, and during 1974 to 1975, was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at New York City University. He was a prolific author. His first book was the 1930 text, "The Political Element in the Development of Economic Theory." He published his 1944 text, "An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy," which was funded by the Carnegie Corporation. Besides the Nobel Prize, he received the Bronislaw Malinowski Award in 1975 and the West German Peace Prize in 1970. He was a member of a host of learned societies around the world. Starting in 1930 with Harvard University in the United States, he received at least 35 honorary doctorate degrees. In 1924 he married Alva Reimer, who would become a sociologist, diplomat and politician and was awarded the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize. They were the fourth married couple to receive the Nobel Prize, but the first to receive the covet award in two different categories: Economics and Peace. She shared his 1970 West German Peace Prize. The couple were the parents of a son and two daughters, who all had successful careers. His health declined after his wife's 1986 death. After being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, he was eventually hospitalized for two months prior to his death.