One of the pleasures of the academic life is the colleagues. Here are some of them: Gordon Tullock We were colleagues at the Public Choice Center at VPI. Some bits and pieces of my memories:Subscribe for free to receive new posts. Gordon gave the impression that he read every book that was published. As best I could tell, he was bluffing about half the time.
Thanks, David, for linking to my post about Earl. Earl influenced my thinking in a lot of different ways, and one of the two or three most important was to reject your father's Monetarism. Did you and Earl talk much about your father while you were at UCLA? Another interesting little fact, given your physics background, is that my cousin Robert Wald arrived at the U of C physics department at just about the same time that your father left Chicago for Stanford/Hoover. Bob's father was the great Abraham Wald with whom your father worked, along with George Stigler, Allen Wallis et al. during WW2 in the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University. If Wald had not died tragically in a plane crash in 1950, he might well have received two Nobel Prizes in economics, just for his pre-1950 contributions, one for the first existence proof of GE and another for pioneering work in statistics and econometrics.
I don't think I ever discussed monetary or related issues with Earl. His main effect on me was to get me to think seriously about commitment strategies as important. For one result see:
I was a TA in Earl Thompson’s intermediate-macro class for one year, two semesters at UCLA.min the early 1990e. In presenting the IS/LM model and its deficiencies (as he did for much of the term) he often nodded to me (attendance by his TA was required) as a representative of the unimaginative mainstream, and said something like “like this guy.” I knew he was doing it to help his students learn his unique macro ideas, and we would always joke about it later while I was grading the exams.
Was he a genius? If that means “eventually accepted by all, even though no one initially does,” maybe not; the jury is still out. But if that means “full of new ideas that are shockingly new and yet not obviously wrong” then he most certainly was.
I was sorry to hear he died so young. They certainly broke the economist mold when they made him.
In addition to public choice theory, he also was, so far as I know, the first inventor of rent seeking and applied the idea more broadly than either I did (Chapter 38 of the Machinery of Freedom, "The Economics Of Theft Or The Nonexistence Of The Ruling Class") or Kruger (who invented the label).
I don't think so. The idea of preference revealing voting was discussed at VPI when I was there but I don't think he was the originator and I don't remember if he had novel versions. It's a clever idea but unstable against cooperation among voters.
After the Marginal Revolution obituary I read “Ideology and the Evolution of Vital Institutions: Guilds, the Gold Standard, and Modern International Cooperation”, and I found his verbal arguments always convincing, his mathematical models very confusing.
To this day, I keep thinking that Guilds were a net positive, and that tariffs, by puting a cost on dependence from foreign countries are probably pricing a “geopolitical externality”. But these powerful intuitions were not backed by convincing models.
Thanks, David, for linking to my post about Earl. Earl influenced my thinking in a lot of different ways, and one of the two or three most important was to reject your father's Monetarism. Did you and Earl talk much about your father while you were at UCLA? Another interesting little fact, given your physics background, is that my cousin Robert Wald arrived at the U of C physics department at just about the same time that your father left Chicago for Stanford/Hoover. Bob's father was the great Abraham Wald with whom your father worked, along with George Stigler, Allen Wallis et al. during WW2 in the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University. If Wald had not died tragically in a plane crash in 1950, he might well have received two Nobel Prizes in economics, just for his pre-1950 contributions, one for the first existence proof of GE and another for pioneering work in statistics and econometrics.
I don't think I ever discussed monetary or related issues with Earl. His main effect on me was to get me to think seriously about commitment strategies as important. For one result see:
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/a-positive-account-of-rights
and for another:
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/the-economics-of-vice-and-virtue
Dear Prof. Friedman,
I was a TA in Earl Thompson’s intermediate-macro class for one year, two semesters at UCLA.min the early 1990e. In presenting the IS/LM model and its deficiencies (as he did for much of the term) he often nodded to me (attendance by his TA was required) as a representative of the unimaginative mainstream, and said something like “like this guy.” I knew he was doing it to help his students learn his unique macro ideas, and we would always joke about it later while I was grading the exams.
Was he a genius? If that means “eventually accepted by all, even though no one initially does,” maybe not; the jury is still out. But if that means “full of new ideas that are shockingly new and yet not obviously wrong” then he most certainly was.
I was sorry to hear he died so young. They certainly broke the economist mold when they made him.
Evan Osborne
Your second definition is the one I would use. Your first definition could apply to a man of average ability who happened to make a lucky guess.
"DF: “That’s probably true. If you were in my position, would you do that?”
E.L.: “No.”
It was the right decision. What was interesting was that he agreed."
A good short argument for not going into academia.
Or for going into academia and doing what you think is interesting rather than what will maximize your probability of getting a good position.
Thanks for listing Tullock first -- he was robbed when the Nobel went only to Buchanan
Gordon was very good at antagonizing people.
In addition to public choice theory, he also was, so far as I know, the first inventor of rent seeking and applied the idea more broadly than either I did (Chapter 38 of the Machinery of Freedom, "The Economics Of Theft Or The Nonexistence Of The Ruling Class") or Kruger (who invented the label).
Did any of Tideman's ideas on voting systems influence you at all? Don't recall hearing you talk about such.
I don't think so. The idea of preference revealing voting was discussed at VPI when I was there but I don't think he was the originator and I don't remember if he had novel versions. It's a clever idea but unstable against cooperation among voters.
There's a lot going on in that area, Nic did much of that.
Thank you for sharing this, I have a lot of reading to do.
Very moving. What an incredible generation.
After the Marginal Revolution obituary I read “Ideology and the Evolution of Vital Institutions: Guilds, the Gold Standard, and Modern International Cooperation”, and I found his verbal arguments always convincing, his mathematical models very confusing.
To this day, I keep thinking that Guilds were a net positive, and that tariffs, by puting a cost on dependence from foreign countries are probably pricing a “geopolitical externality”. But these powerful intuitions were not backed by convincing models.
I enjoyed this essay. Thanks Professor.