Lives of the Laureates

Autobiographical accounts by Nobel laureates reflect the richness and diversity of contemporary economic thought and offer insights into the creative process.

Lives of the Laureates offers readers an informal history of modern economic thought as told through autobiographical essays by twenty-three Nobel Prize laureates in Economics. The essays not only provide unique insights into major economic ideas of our time but also shed light on the processes of intellectual discovery and creativity. The accounts are accessible and engaging, achieving clarity without sacrificing inherently difficult content.

This sixth 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.

Lives of the Laureates 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. These lectures demonstrate the richness and diversity of contemporary economic thought. The reader will find that paths cross in unexpected ways—that disparate thinkers were often influenced by the same teachers—and that luck as well as hard work plays a role in the process of scientific discovery.

The Laureates
Lawrence R. Klein • Kenneth J. Arrow • Paul A. Samuelson • Milton Friedman • George J. Stigler • James Tobin • Franco Modigliani • James M. Buchanan • Robert M. Solow • William F. Sharpe • Douglass C. North • Myron S. Scholes • Gary S. Becker • Robert E. Lucas, Jr. • James J. Heckman • Vernon L. Smith • Edward C. Prescott • Thomas C. Schelling • Edmund S. Phelps • Eric S. Maskin • Joseph E. Stiglitz • Paul Krugman • Peter A. Diamond

Roger W. Spencer is Vernon F. Taylor Professor of Economics at Trinity University, San Antonio.

David A. Macpherson is E. M. Stevens Professor of Economics at Trinity University, San Antonio.

Kenneth J. Arrow, who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1972, is Joan Kenny Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research at Stanford University.

Paul Samuelson (1915–2009) received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1970. He was Institute Professor, Emeritus; Professor of Economics, Emeritus; and Gordon Y. Billard Fellow at MIT. His influential Economics: An Introductory Analysis is the most widely used economics textbook ever published.

James Tobin, who received the Nobel prize in economics in 1981, is Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale.

Franco Modigliani (1918-2003) was Professor Emeritus of Economics and Management at MIT, where he began teaching in 1960. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1985.

James M. Buchanan, awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, was Professor Emeritus at George Mason University.

Robert M. Solow is Institute Professor of Economics.

James J. Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. He was a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 2000. He is the coauthor (with Alan B. Krueger) of Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies? (MIT Press).

Edward C. Prescott is Regents' Professor at the University of Minnesota and Economic Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Edmund S. Phelps is McVickar Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University and founder of Columbia's Center on Capitalism and Society. He was the 2006 Nobel Laureate in Economics.

Institute for Advanced Study

Joseph Stiglitz, a 2001 Nobel Laureate, is University Professor at Columbia University.

Paul Krugman is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a New York Times columnist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008.

Peter Diamond is John and Jennie S. McDonald Professor of Economics at MIT. He received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics.

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Lives of the Laureates

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