Hendrik Houthakker, 83; Economist, Nixon Adviser

Mr. Houthakker, whose best-known published works include analyses of family budgets and consumption patterns, served from 1975 to 1977 on the National Commission on Supplies and Shortages. He also was editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics from 1971 to 1991.

He received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1963 and later was a vice president and distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association.

In 2003, he received a papal honor that recognized his early public support for Karol Wojtyla, the Polish cardinal elected Pope John Paul II in 1978. Wojtyla and Mr. Houthakker's wife, Polish-born philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, had known each other years earlier, and the Houthakkers opened their homes in New England to the visiting pontiff in the early 1970s.

Tymieniecka said her husband played a key role in inviting then-Cardinal Wojtyla to give a lecture at Harvard and introduced the pontiff as "the next pope."

"It was just a casual remark," Mr. Houthakker, a resident of North Pomfret, Vt., and Hanover, N.H., later told a New Hampshire reporter.

In 1991, Mr. Houthakker participated with Kenneth Arrow, Jeffrey Sachs, Amartya Sen and other prominent economists in a Vatican symposium marking the centennial of "Rerum Novarum," a pronouncement on the state of the working classes.

Mr. Houthakker also lectured on ethics and economics at Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

In addition to his wife of 52 years, survivors include three children, Louis Houthakker of North Pomfret and Hanover, Jan-Nicolas Houthakker of Ludlow, Vt., and Isabella Houthakker of Ukiah, Calif.; and a brother.