For his 100th anniversary on 5 October 2007, the Estonian Postal Service commemorated Nurkse with an international letter stamp. He was policy maker mainly in the fields of international finance and economic development.
Ragnar Nurkse is beyond doubt the only economist of Estonian descent with a truly international reputation and apparently also the internationally best known Estonian savant of all times.
Ragnar Nurkse was born on 5 October 1907 in Käru village, now Raplamaa county of the then Governorate of Estonia of the Russian Empire, son of an Estonian father who worked himself up from lumberjack to estate manager and an Estonian-Swedish mother. His parents emigrated from Estonia to Canada in 1928.
