Joseph Alois Schumpeter, George F. Baker Professor of Economics and one of the world's leading economists, died early yesterday morning at the age of 66. Death resulted from a cerebral hemorrhage while Schumpeter was sleeping in his country house in Taconic, Connecticut.

Once Austria's Minister of Finance, Schumpeter was a prolific writer whose influence on economic thought had been felt by thousands of students in this country and abroad.

He was known principally for his contributions to business cycle theory, for his application of mathematics to economic problems, and for his study of the entrepreneur as the innovator responsible for economic changes.

Taught This Fall

Active professionally to the time of his death, Schumpeter this fall gave two courses in the University: Advanced Economic Theory, and Business Cycles and Economic Forecasting.

Following the annual December meeting of the American Economic Association in New York, the economist had gone to his Taconic home to rest before delivering the annual Walgreen Lectures at the University of Chicago.

Professor Schumpeter was born on February 8, 1883, in Triesch, Moravia, and received the Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Vienna in 1906. At the age of 30 he achieved an international reputation for his "Theory of Economic Development."

From 1906 to 1932 he taught at four European universities, taking a year out after World War I do serve as Finance Minister in the newly-formed democratic government of Austria. In 1932 Schumpeter came to Harvard as Professor of Economics and has taught here since.

Planned Paris Trip

A member of several scholarly associations, Schumpeter was president of the American Economic Association in 1948. At the time of his death he was about to become the first president of the new International Economics Association, and he had planned to visit Paris next August for the group's first meeting.

Funeral services will be held tomorrow at 2 p.m. at St. John's Church in Salisbury, Conn. Memorial services will be held later in Memorial Church.