Simon Kuznets won the 1971 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth.
Kuznets developed major national-income measurement methods and used long-run data to study how production, income, and population change over time. His work helped make economic growth a measurable historical subject rather than only a theoretical one.
The award citation emphasized his research on economic growth, especially in developing countries. Kuznets is also closely associated with the Kuznets curve, although that term refers to a later hypothesis about inequality and development and was not the full basis of his Nobel citation.
The 1971 prize was awarded solely to Kuznets. This distinguishes it from many other economics prizes that were shared by two or three laureates.