One of the 20th century's most influential economists has passed away.
An excerpt from the obituary from the MIT News Office:
Samuelson's contributions to the field were so numerous and fundamental that they lend themselves to description in more general terms. "If you did a time and motion study of what any modern economist does at work, you would find that an enormous proportion of standard mental devices trace back to Paul Samuelson's long lifetime of research," said MIT Institute Professor Emeritus Robert Solow. "What I can add about my beloved friend of 60 years is that he had a marvelous intuition about how a market economy had to be. 'It must work like this,' he would say. 'Now all we have to do is prove it.' There was no one like him."
More from:
Wall Street Journal Real Time Economics
New York Times
Here is a recent interview of Samuelson by Conor Clarke of The Atlantic (part 2) (hat tip Angry Bear)
Marginal Revolution has three posts (so far). One of which recounts Samuelson's famous quote: "I don't care who writes a nation's laws... if I can write its economics textbooks."
It's true that Samuelson's introductory textbook set the standard. Keynesian in his philosophy, his mathematical approach became the basis for neoclassical economics.
And yes, I have a copy of...
I actually found it easier to understand than some more modern graduate texts.
An excerpt from the obituary from the MIT News Office:
Samuelson's contributions to the field were so numerous and fundamental that they lend themselves to description in more general terms. "If you did a time and motion study of what any modern economist does at work, you would find that an enormous proportion of standard mental devices trace back to Paul Samuelson's long lifetime of research," said MIT Institute Professor Emeritus Robert Solow. "What I can add about my beloved friend of 60 years is that he had a marvelous intuition about how a market economy had to be. 'It must work like this,' he would say. 'Now all we have to do is prove it.' There was no one like him."
More from:
Wall Street Journal Real Time Economics
New York Times
Here is a recent interview of Samuelson by Conor Clarke of The Atlantic (part 2) (hat tip Angry Bear)
Marginal Revolution has three posts (so far). One of which recounts Samuelson's famous quote: "I don't care who writes a nation's laws... if I can write its economics textbooks."
It's true that Samuelson's introductory textbook set the standard. Keynesian in his philosophy, his mathematical approach became the basis for neoclassical economics.
And yes, I have a copy of...
I actually found it easier to understand than some more modern graduate texts.
That's the same edition of Foundations that I have. Bought mine in 1969, when I started (and did not finish) graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. Samuelson really did transform economics as an academic discipline...
gud and informative article on a legend of economics