Irving B. Kravis (1917 – January 3, 1992) was an American economist, best known for his work on international price comparisons, leading to the first version of the Penn World Table.
[2]: 181 [4] Kravis served the United States in World War II as a first lieutenant in China with the Flying Tigers, for which he received a Bronze Star.
[2] In the 1950s, during a visit to Paris, Kravis worked with Milton Gilbert, an economist at the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) (the predecessor to OECD) on international price comparison.
[5][6][7][2]: 177–178 [8]: 65 In 1956, Kravis published a paper describing the non-availability approach, a theory of internationalization that says that countries import goods that are not available, or prohibitively expensive, at home.
[3] Kravis died on January 3, 1992, after falling ill at the Philadelphia airport on the way to receiving the Distinguished Fellow award of the American Economic Association.