Professor Herbert Metsa (1931-2008) – teadlane ja organisaator omas ajas.Professor Herbert Metsa (1931-2008) – Wissenschaftler und bedeutender Organisator seiner Zeit
Creators: name: Raju, Olev
Publisher: name: MATTIMAR OÜ
Year: 2013

description: Herbert Metsa was born on 2 January 1931 and graduated the Faculty of Law of Tartu University with honours degree in 1954. He worked as the vice-chairman of the board of Tartu Consumers’ Co-operative.

The leader of the Department of Political Economy of Tartu University was latter Academic Professor Bronstein, who chose stuff by abilities, not by the political loyalty. So, Herbert Metsa became aspirant of University in 1956 in spite of the fact that he had a black spot – his father had been a member of Self-Defence in 1941-1942. Metsa got the Degree of Aspirant in 1963 (“The Problems of Price Formation in Socialist Industry”) and he worked in Tartu University in 1961-1974; he was promoted from assistant to an assistant professor.

The first book by Herbert Metsa (“Personal Property and Personal Consumption”) was published in 1966. A row of books and brochures followed it: “Expenditure of Labour and its efficiency” (1970), “Scientific and Technical Progress and IX Five-year Period” (1972), “Present Day and the Stimulation of the Quality of the Production” (1974), “The Intensification of Social Producing and Economical Mechanism in Socialist Society” (1980) and “Modern Problems of Producing Development” (1984). Doctor’s Thesis “The Problems of Raising Economic Efficiency of Social Producing” was maintained in 1973 by Herbert Metsa. H. Metsa has published almost 200 various scientific publications.

H. Metsa has got administrative job since 1974. He’s the science pro-rector of Tartu University (also, the degree of professor is obtained in the same period in 1978). He’s the director of the Estonian branch of All-Union Institute of Labour Scientific Researches 1981-1985. In 1985 he come back to Tartu, to Estonian University of Life Sciences. Initially he leads the Department of Political Economy (1985-1990), and afterwards he’s the Professor of the Department of Agrarian Economics (1990-1992) and Chairman of Marketing Chair (1992-1996). Professor Emeritus Herbert Metsa died on 25 May 2008 in Tartu. 

Metsa would be memorized as a forceful and resolute organizer of science and through his strong clout and very exigent attitude to his subordinates. As the science pro-rector he practically created a faculty and laid the basis for contract researches, which were the only researches of Grand principle of that time. 

 There are two main fields of Herbert Metsaś scientific researches, which are of interest nowadays. First, he reached very close to describing processes of modern microeconomic positive scale effects. He used the term: stadiums of intensive development way. A development of society could take place only if (whatever) impact is bigger than the growth of the resources used for it; it’s impressed by formula: Δ impact &gt; Δ inputs. Another field of scientific interest since today in H. Metsa researches are the problems of quality. H. Metsa observes the questions of quality in socialist economy and he demonstrates that the interest of an enterprise to arise the quality isn’t sufficient in a situation, wherein the realization of all the planned production has been guaranteed according to the fixed prices. A small school (M. Miljan; I. Larin etc.) arose from the leadership of Herbert Metsa in the observation of quality problems
description: Estonian Discussions on Economic Policy, Vol 20, No 2 (2012)