Henrik Ekesiöö: Bertil Ohlin
On April 23, 2024—125 years after Bertil Ohlin’s birth—the Stockholm School of Economics inaugurated a sculpture of its Nobel Prize-winning professor Bertil Ohlin, created by artist Henrik Ekesiöö.
The sculpture stands outside the southwest corner of the School’s main building on Bertil Ohlins gata. It was created by Henrik Ekesiöö and donated by Bertil Ohlin’s son, Tomas Ohlin. The work is part of both the SSE Permanent Collection and Stockholm konst.
Bertil Ohlin (April 23, 1899–August 3, 1979) was a Swedish economist and politician. He served as Professor of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics from 1929 to 1965 and was leader of the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) from 1944 to 1967.
Ohlin is best known for the Heckscher–Ohlin model of international trade, which he developed together with Eli Heckscher. The model remains one of the foundational theories of international economics.
In 1977, Bertil Ohlin was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel together with British economist James Meade for “their pathbreaking contribution to the theory of international trade and international capital movements.”
The Heckscher-Ohlin Room at SSE, which forms part of the School’s Permanent Collection, is also named in honor of Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin.