Remembering Paul Samuelson

 Paul A. Samuelson, whose analytical work laid the foundation for modern economics, died Sunday. He was 94. Actively publishing into the 2000s, Mr. Samuelson’s career in economics spanned eight decades. In 1970, he was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in economics, the second year the prize was offered. The following are some remembrances of Mr. Samuelson:

        保罗 • 萨缪尔森于周日去世，享年94岁，他的经济分析奠定了现代经济学的基础。萨缪尔森先生致力于经济研究达80年，直到2000年后，他的著作仍然在出版。1970年，他赢得了诺贝尔经济学奖，第二年获奖，这在美国他是第一人。下面是对他的部分追忆。

       注：1931年，聪明勤奋的萨缪尔森，在十五岁的时候就考入芝加哥大学，专修经济学。

 Lawrence Summers, nephew of Mr. Samuelson, director of the White House National Economic Council, former Treasury Secretary:

       劳伦斯 • 萨默斯，萨缪尔森的侄子，白宫国家经济委员会主席，前财政部长

“Above all else, Paul Samuelson was a scholar.  He used to proudly remark that he had never spent a full week in Washington.  But through his research, teaching, and writing he had more impact on the economic life of this country and the world than any government economic official and many presidents.  We will not see his likes again.”

       “重要的是，保罗 •萨缪尔森是个学者。他曾经自豪地说他从没有在华盛顿呆过一整周的时间。但通过他的研究、教学和写作，他对这个国家和世界的经济生活产生了影响，这个影响要比任何一个政府的经济官员和许多的总统还要多。我们将不会再看到像他这样的人了。”

 Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, MIT PhD:

       本 • 伯南克   美联储掌门，麻省博士：

 “Paul Samuelson was both a path-breaking and prolific economic theorist and one of the greatest teachers that economics has ever known.  I join with many other former students and colleagues of Paul's in mourning the passing of a titan of economics.”

       “保罗• 萨缪尔森既是个划时代的、多产的经济理论学家，而且是经济学史上最伟大的教师之一。我和保罗的许多从前的学生和同事一起对一个经济学的巨匠的辞世深表痛心。”

 Robert Lucas, Nobel Prize winner, University of Chicago Professor. (Excerpted from his memoir):

       罗伯特•卢卡斯，诺奖获得者，芝加哥大学教授(摘自他的回忆录)：

 “Samuelson was the Julia Child of economics, somehow teaching you the basics and giving you the feeling of becoming an insider in a complex culture all at the same time. I loved the Foundations. Like so many others in my cohort, I internalized its view that if I couldn’t formulate a problem in economic theory mathematically, I didn’t know what I was doing. I came to the position that mathematical analysis is not one of many ways of doing economic theory: It is the only way. Economic theory is mathematical analysis. Everything else is just pictures and talk.”

 George Akerlof, Nobel Prize winner, MIT PhD, Berkeley professor:

       乔治 • 阿克尔洛夫，诺奖得主，麻省博士，加州大学伯克利分校经济学教授：

 When I was at MIT in the 1960's Paul Samuelson was far and away the leading economist in the country. He was the leading adviser to the Kennedy administration, the leading economic theorist and also the author of the leading elementary textbook.  Yet he also found time to be tremendously involved in the MIT economics PhD program.  He always kept his door open and attended such events as the department picnic.
        Samuelson was also incredibly efficient, and, as students, we used to receive pink slips, which were pink memos, with some thought of his in our mailboxes.  When I wrote about his participation in the program and his interaction with all the students in a commemorative volume for him some years later, I received one of his pink slips, which said, “Thank you for the comments. I had never thought of myself as Mr. Chips.”  He may not have thought of himself that way, but of course he was.
        I also remember taking a course from him where he discussed, in the spring of 1964, a long time before (Milton) Friedman and (Edmund) Phelps became famous for it, the natural rate (of employment) hypothesis.  Samuelson thought that there might be some truth to it, but thought that if it were not true that believing it would do great harm.  Governments would then keep employment low because of unfounded fears of accelerating inflation. Samuelson was way ahead of his time, not just in considering the natural rate (of employment) hypothesis, but also in appreciating that it might not be true.

 Robert Hall, Stanford professor, head of the recession dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, MIT PHd:

罗伯特 • 霍尔，斯坦福大学教授，美国国家经济研究局衰退测定委员会主席，麻省博士：

“Paul Samuelson created modern economics, in that he brought rigorous thinking to a field that had relied on mostly verbal and graphical analysis up to his time. His book, Foundations of Economic Analysis, was a bible to my generation of economists, trained entirely in the then-new Samuelson mode. He was my economic theory instructor in 1964 and he and I taught the course together when I returned to MIT as a junior faculty member in 1970.

 “Paul emanated good humor and affection and induced the same in his friends and colleagues. I particularly remember his interest in my children. Offspring were totally out of fashion among the young faculty in the early 1970s, but Paul always wanted to know about mine. Some of this rubbed off on the kids, apparently, as my daughter chose MIT for her PhD in, of course, economics. She did not have Paul as a teacher, but the great majority of her teachers were pupils of his.

 “Paul did not indulge some of my more heterodox economic thinking. Once, appointed as discussant of a paper of mine on monetary policy, he opened by saying, “I have this to say about Hall’s idea: It is not the worst way to run monetary policy.” I later came to realize that he was right.

Avinash Dixit, Princeton Professor, MIT PhD:

       阿温纳什 • 迪克西特，普林斯顿大学经济学教授，麻省博士：

“It is indeed sad, and it is difficult to imagine the profession without him. In every decade since the 1930s he made pathbreaking contributions, any one of which would have been the pride of someone else's whole career.

 “For me it is a special bereavement. My whole style of research, and the techniques that support almost all of my own papers, derive from his foundational articles. The whole idea of modeling full equilibrium of a specific applied context lies behind my work with Joe Stiglitz on monopolistic competition and with Victor Norman on international trade. As to the techniques I learned from him and used: comparative statics of constrained optimization, the correspondence principle and the envelope theorem, factor price equalization in international trade, valuation of real options, the list could go on.”

James Poterba，MIT economist and National Bureau of Economic Research president:

       詹姆斯 • 波特伯，麻省理工学院经济学教授、美国国家经济研究局主席：

There's just an enormous amount of what every undergraduate learns that we take for granted that Paul played an absolutely critical role in codifying and uncovering. It's like trying to envision how people did mechanics before Newton. The rigor that he introduced has defined the discipline.

     He had an unbelievably deep love for economics that just pervaded everything he did. He was really concerned about getting it right. Economics is not just a (mental) game, it’s something you do because it really matters.

     He was immensely interested in knowing what the young researchers were doing because he was always trying to stay at the forefront. In my first days at MIT, Paul came over and found me and said, “So you’re the new guy here, what are you working on.” I was incredibly scared and flattered to find that Paul was interested in what the new assistant economics professor on the block was doing.

Robert Shiller, Yale professor, MIT PhD, author of “Irrational Exuberance:”

      罗伯特 • 希勒，耶鲁大学教授，麻省理工博士，《非理性繁荣》作者：

 Paul Samuelson has been an influence on me throughout my entire economics career. He has been keeping in touch even recently.

       He emailed me and asked me to call him on the phone. I called him October 8, 2009, and discovered that what he wanted to talk with me about was not the usual kinds of things that provoke phone calls. Of course, he was not organizing a conference or asking for review of a paper, which often prompts communications among economists. He wanted to ruminate with me about speculation in markets, and about how the new markets I have been involved in creating (housing futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and housing securities at MacroMarkets LLC at the New York Stock Exchange) might possibly fuel, rather than diminish speculation as I have been thinking. I had a very serious conversation with him about these issues and related national policy issues. This talk didn't really change my thinking, at least not yet, but I thought afterwards that he is really different from most people I know. He seems to be genuinely motivated by higher purpose. He surprised me by saying: “You should talk this over with your pastor or spiritual advisor.” Was he joking? I don’t think so. Samuelson's wry humor crops up in unexpected places, but there was always a real seriousness about him.

       萨缪尔森对我的影响贯穿了我整个经济学生涯。直到最近，他还跟我联系过。

       萨缪尔森发电邮给我让我回电话，今年10月8日我打电话给萨缪尔森。但发现，萨缪尔森真正想跟我谈论的并不是通常那些电话交谈的内容，更不是通常经济学家 之间交流所谈到的会议组织或是论文看法等等。萨缪尔森想给我一些关于市场的启发，以及创造这些新市场的动力。萨缪尔森正在研究芝加哥商业交易所的房产期货 和纽约证交所的房产证券问题。我与他就这些问题和相关国家的政策问题进行了严肃的讨论。此次谈话并不能真的改变我的思考，至少现在不会，但我事后觉得他和 我认识的大多数人都不一样。他看起来有着更深层次的目的。他突然说的话让我吃惊，"你该和你的牧师或心灵顾问谈一下。他在开玩笑吗？我觉得不是。他的黑色 幽默出其不意，但他一直保持着严肃性。