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Karl Gunnar Myrdal (December 6, 1898 - May 17, 1987) was a Swedish economist and politician. He was born in Gustafs, Dalarna, and died in Danderyd, close to Stockholm. He graduated from Stockholm University Law School in 1923 and received a doctorate degree in Economics in 1927. He married Alva Myrdal in 1924, and they had three children including Jan Myrdal and Sissela Bok. He, along with Friedrich von Hayek, won the 1974 Nobel Prize for Economics 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." He was Social Democratic member of parliament from 1933 and minister of trade from 1945 to 1947 in Tage Erlanders government. Gunnar Myrdal himself is known for his 1944 study, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy , which influenced the US Supreme Court 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education to outlaw racial segregation in public schools. Myrdal was also a signatory of the 1950 UNESCO statement The Race Question , which also influenced Brown v. Board.
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