in this week’s Barron’s, commentator Gene Epstein shares a rather different view of Paul Samuelson from most who eulogized his life. Epstein perceived the economist who has been elevated for bringing math to his discipline as the scholar who needed more so to recognize human unpredictability. Commenting on Samuelson’s analysis of the Soviet Union, he saw a naive individual who failed to see the reality of their false statistics.
Because Epstein sounds rather harsh (although his basic opinions can be defended), I add here a link to a textbook inscription to Greg Mankiw from Paul Samuelson that is special.
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/12/memories-of-paul.html
Tag Archives: Paul Samuelson
Posted by: adminEcon
Tags: communism, Greg Mankiw, Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, Soviet Union
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During a recent interview, Larry Summers, Director of President Obama’s National Economic Council, (former economics professor, president of Harvard, Secretary of the Treasury) spoke about his family. His mother’s brother (Kenneth Arrow) and his father’s brother (Paul Samuelson) were Nobel laureates in economics. His parents taught economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Saying during the interview that economics permeated his life–even when deciding who would get to watch TV, he added that for years he did not realize that his childhood was atypical.
(Interview from Bloomberg on the Economy 12/15/09)
Posted by: adminEcon
Tags: Larry Summers, Paul Samuelson
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