The Swedish economist and sociologist Karl Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987) helped shape social and economic planning in Sweden, focused attention on the problems of the African American, and worked on the problems of the underdeveloped nations.

Gunnar Myrdal was born in Gustafs on Dec. 6, 1898. He graduated from the University of Stockholm Law School in 1923 and received a doctorate of laws in economics in 1927. From 1927 to 1950, he taught economics and, in the 1960s, international economics at the University of Stockholm.

In 1934, Myrdal and his wife, Alva, a sociologist, wrote Crisis in the Population Question, which studied the excessively decreasing Swedish birthrate. Their analysis stressed the need for social planning in order to raise the birthrate without lowering the high standard of living. Their work greatly influenced Scandinavian social planning in the 1930's and opened the way for general social reforms in Sweden. Myrdal served on the new government commissions which...