Economists
The New York Times reports that Paul Samuelson, the most important academic economist of the 20th century, has passed away. The lengthy obituary is a worthwhile read. As a graduate student at MIT in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I met Paul Samuelson but did not get to know him. His influence was evident, though, and I give Michael Weinstein of the Times credit for concluding his article this way:
Despite his celebrated accomplishments, Mr. Samuelson preached and practiced humility. The M.I.T. economics department became famous for collegiality, in no small part because no one else could play prima donna if Mr. Samuelson refused the role, and, of course, he did. Economists, he told his students, as Churchill said of political colleagues, “have much to be humble about.”
Everyone I met at MIT in those days paid this favor forward. It was a wonderful place to be a graduate student.
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics was awarded to Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom today. Here is a write-up in The New York Times. I got as far as the comma before getting frustrated:
In a departure from prevailing economic theory, ...
There is no nice way to say just how badly this misconstrues the study of economics and its development as a field. Williamson's contributions are now part of the prevailing economic theory. Prior to his work, they were not. He merited the award precisely because of that change. Given the lag between when intellectual contributions are made and when they are recognized by the Nobel, his receipt of the award is not a surprise. Consider the betting pool at Harvard over the weekend, which had Williamson among the favorites.
This morning, while clearing a powdery foot of snow off my driveway, I made one of the minor* mistakes of snowblowing. I forgot to check for the newspaper, and when I pushed the snowblower over it, up through the chute went strips of newspaper. With all of the bad news this year, it was a delightfully liberating experience.
As calendar year 2008 winds down, you may be wondering what you can do to make 2009 and 2010 better than 2008. I have a small suggestion: Donate to Charlie Wheelan's campaign to fill the House seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel. Here is the beginning of the campaign e-mail:
Dear Friends, Supporters, and Spies from Other Campaigns,
We’ve been at this for about a month now, and who could have predicted the turns that the campaign would take. The sad fact is that our pathetic governor has completely changed the dynamics of this race. When I first began to tell people that I was running, they would invariably ask, “Who is ‘the Machine’ supporting?”
I thought this response by Greg Mankiw to this post by Paul Krugman was appropriate but incomplete. Appropriate, for the simple reason that Krugman is taking pot shots at those who served in the Bush Administration without any reference to evidence. Incomplete, for the equally simple reason that Mankiw has many more economists to consider in his comparisons where he does try to provide evidence.
Mankiw includes Larry Summers in his comparisons, recognizing that as Director of the NEC, he will coordinate all of the President's economic policy. Who were the directors of the NEC under President Bush?
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics to Paul Krugman "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.'' Read the Bloomberg news story here and keep up with Marginal Revolution's excellent commentary on the underlying contributions that merit the award starting here and here.
To be written up by your graduate school alumni magazine in an article titled, "Obama's Geek Economist." Here is MIT's Technology Review's article on Austan Goolsbee. Here's an excerpt:
Senator Obama's announcement last week that Jason Furman would join his economic team as economic policy director set off the unfortunate spate of criticism from the Left that he's not Left enough on labor issues. I figured the last thing Jason needed was a defense from an occasional right-of-center policy opponent. (The most thoughtful one is here, with links to others from those with left-of-center credentials.)
The most hysterical commentary I've read comes, surprise, from Naomi Klein in The Nation, where Furman's appointment is taken as further evidence that Obama is "thoroughly embedded in the mind-set known as the Chicago School."
V: The Series, which aired on NBC in the mid 1980s, was one of the all-time worst shows in the history of television. After two successful mini-series, it became an "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"-equivalent cult classic.
The show, about aliens who supposedly come to Earth in peace but actually come for other reasons, included an interesting side story. The "vistors" (one of the two reasons for the series name) commander blamed much of the resistence on "the scientists" who he said were opposing the superior technology being offered to the humans. Plot outlines are hard to find these days but as I remember 20+ years later, they included the demonizing of, turning popular opinion against, and rounding up of the scientists.
The scientists were being persecuted for explaining that the technology the visitors were offering would not deliver what was being promised and wasn't the gift the aliens said it was.
Unlike some of the others you see on TV, Steve Liesman, the economist-in-chief at CNBC, is an excellent reporter (Full disclosure: I know Steve and for years have had the opportunity to talk with him in front of and behind the camera).
