Born in small-town Germany, Hirsch emigrated to Mandatory Palestine (later known as Israel) to escape the Nazis in the late 1930s, where he attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He emigrated to the United States in 1946 and received a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1949.
[1][2] Due to the rise of antisemitic National Socialism in Germany, Hirsch and his family moved to Haifa, Mandatory Palestine (now known as Israel) in 1936.
[3] Meanwhile, he worked for the RAND Corporation,[1] the Kerner Commission, the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Internal Revenue Service, and the National Science Foundation.
[3] They resided in Los Angeles, California, where he died of pancreatic cancer, aged 89, on July 10, 2009.