Richard Francis Ruggles (1916– March 4, 2001) was an American economist[2] known for "developing accounting tools for measuring national income and improving price indexes used in formulating government policy.

He spent most of his youth in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his father, Clyde O. Ruggles, also an economist, served as the dean of Harvard Business School.

[5] In 1943, Ruggles traveled to London and joined the Office of Strategic Services, where he used photographs of destroyed German tank serial numbers to estimate production rates at different factories, solving the German tank problem.

[9] The Nancy and Richard Ruggles Memorial Fund presents an annual award recognizing outstanding scholarship.

The presentation is made at the General Conference of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW).