Ragnar Anton Kittil Frisch (3 March 1895 – 31 January 1973) was an influential Norwegian economist known for being one of the major contributors to establishing economics as a quantitative and statistically informed science in the early 20th century.

Later work on the model, together with Jan Tinbergen, won the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969.

[4] After teaching briefly at Yale from 1930–31, he was offered a full professorship in economics, which he declined after pressures by colleagues to return to the University of Oslo.

In 1921 Frisch received a fellowship from the university which enabled him to spend three years studying economics and mathematics in France and England.

After his return to Norway, in 1923, although the family's business was having difficulties, he continued his scientific activity, believing that research, not jewellery, was his real calling.

During the same year, he published his seminal article "Sur un problème d'économie pure" starting the implementation of his own quantization programme.

There, seeking other economists interested in the new mathematical and statistical approaches to economics, he associated with Irving Fisher, Wesley Clair Mitchell, Allyn Young and Henry Schultz.

Wesley Mitchell, who had just written a book on business cycles, popularized Frisch's paper which was introducing new advanced methods.

[13] Although his fellowship was extended to travel to Italy and France, the next year Frisch had to return to Norway because of his father's death.

Ragnar Frisch received the Antonio Feltrinelli prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1961 and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969 (awarded jointly with Jan Tinbergen) for "having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes".

[18][19] During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, Frisch was arrested, along with 13 other University of Oslo faculty members and more than 100 students, in October 1943.

Frisch also is credited with introducing the term "model" in its modern economic sense by Paul Samuelson, based on a 1930 Yale University lecture.