István Varga

Born July 5,1897, in Budapest; died Dec. 30, 1962. Hungarian economist; corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Hungarian People’s Republic (HPR). Graduated from the department of government and law of the University of Budapest.

Varga headed the Hungarian Scientific Research Institute of Economics intermittently from 1927 to 1949. In 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo for participation in a plot against the fascists and was released in May 1945 in Berlin. He was a professor at the University of Budapest from 1945 to 1950, chairman of the Administration of Materials and Prices and secretary of state of the Ministry of Industry and Construction from 1946 to 1948, professor at the Institute of Economics of the HPR from 1954 to 1957, and professor at the K. Marx University of Economics from 1957 to 1962. Varga’s scholarly activity was devoted to research on problems of the socialist economy, the planned economy, finance, statistics, and demography.