Lives of the Laureates: Twenty-three Nobel Economists
Roger W. Spencer and David A. Macpherson
Abstract
This book is an informal history of modern economic thought as told through autobiographical chapters by twenty-three Nobel Prize laureates in Economics. The chapters not only provide unique insights into major economic ideas of our time but also shed light on the processes of intellectual discovery and creativity. This edition adds four recent Nobelists to its pages: Eric Maskin, who illustrates his explanation of mechanism design with an example involving a mother, a cake, and two children; Joseph Stiglitz, who recounts his field's ideological wars linked to policy disputes; Paul Krugman, wh ... More
This book is an informal history of modern economic thought as told through autobiographical chapters by twenty-three Nobel Prize laureates in Economics. The chapters not only provide unique insights into major economic ideas of our time but also shed light on the processes of intellectual discovery and creativity. This edition adds four recent Nobelists to its pages: Eric Maskin, who illustrates his explanation of mechanism design with an example involving a mother, a cake, and two children; Joseph Stiglitz, who recounts his field's ideological wars linked to policy disputes; Paul Krugman, who describes the insights he gained from studying the model of the Capitol Hill Babysitting Coop (and the recession it suffered when more people wanted to accumulate babysitting coupons than redeem them); and Peter Diamond, who maps his development from student to teacher to policy analyst. This text grows out of a continuing lecture series at Trinity University in San Antonio, which invites Nobelists from American universities to describe their evolution as economists in personal as well as technical terms.
Keywords:
modern economic thought,
Nobel Prize laureates,
economic ideas,
mechanism design,
ideological wars,
policy disputes,
Capitol Hill Babysitting Coop,
recession,
babysitting coupons
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780262027960 |
| Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: May 2015 |
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262027960.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Roger W. Spencer, editor
Trinity University
David A. Macpherson, editor
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