Alan S. Manne

Brief Biography

Alan Sussman Manne, born in New York City, was a leading operations researcher and economist who is best remembered for devising economic models pertaining to major world concerns. In his later career he focused on developing economically efficient methods of environmental protection and cleanup. Manne was an only child and received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard before serving in the United States Navy during the Second World War. He returned to the university after the War and received his PhD in economics.

Manne spent his first few postgraduate years at the RAND Corporation where he met lifelong friend and colleague, Kenneth J. Arrow. From 1956 to 1961, he taught courses at Yale University as an associate professor of economics. Manne relocated to Stanford University, where he spent the vast majority of his remaining professional career. During his tenure at Stanford, Manne was associated with the Graduate School of Business and the Department of Operations Research. He retired from teaching in 1992 but continued an active research life as an author, submitting his last manuscript the year before he died.

Manne and his collaborators were known for their dedicated application of economic models to pressing international issues. His book on multi-level industrial resource planning models in Mexico (co-edited with Louis M. Goreux) was awarded the 1973 Frederick W. Lanchester Prize for best OR publication written in English. The book was heralded as a benchmark quantitative study of policy oriented issues in a growing economy. Manne took his Mexican work and applied it in such other developing nations as India and Turkey.

Manne supervised thirty-four doctoral students over the course of his long and impactful career. He went on to work alongside many of them, including Richard Richels. Richels and Manne were among the first to study the economic impact of the international effort to lower greenhouse gasses. Their study on the costs of the Kyoto Protocol helped lead to its successful adoption in numerous countries across the globe.

Manne’s influence was recognized by numerous organizations on a number of occasions. He was named a Fellow or Member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, the Econometric Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to the Lanchester Prize, Manne received the Larnder Memorial Prize of the Canadian Operational Research Society for his international distinction in operational research.

At age sixty, Manne developed a late love for horseback riding, playing polo well into the later years of his life. At eighty years old, he passed away from injuries sustained after falling from his beloved gelding, Sharky. Manne’s colleagues celebrate the legacy of research he left behind as a pioneering advocate for environmentally friendly methods of delivering energy to society. 

Other Biographies

International Energy Workshop. History: Alan S. Manne. Accessed March 19, 2015. (link)