Hurwicz's Nobel Shows Nice Guys Can Finish First

Oct 16, 04:13 PM

Current Headlines: By Edward Lotterman, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Oct. 16--Every time my friend Paul came back from his Ph.D.-level microeconomics course he said the same thing: "Man, Leo is just amazing." I never had the privilege of taking a course from Leonid Hurwicz but I know many people who did. Most shared Paul's opinion: Leo Hurwicz was one of the finest teachers they ever had.

You have to be a great economist to get the Nobel Prize for that discipline. You do not have to be a great teacher. Nor do you have to be a particularly nice person. However, Leo Hurwicz makes the grade on all three counts.

He is a masterful economist who made great intellectual contributions 60 years ago and has kept on ever since. He is a skilled and beloved teacher who helped the University of Minnesota turn out dozens of well-trained Ph.D.s over the years. He is a fine human being -- kind, considerate and free of the egomania that plagues some academic stars, with a great, understated sense of humor.

The University of Minnesota has had many great economists over the years. Too many have gone on to better-paid positions elsewhere, including Thomas Sargent, Neil Wallace, Christopher Sims and Joel Slemrod in the last two decades. Leo Hurwicz is one who came and stayed. He did not have to, and Minnesota owes him thanks.

Hurwicz does not have a doctorate in economics. His last degree is a master of laws from Warsaw University in 1938. If not for Hitler, he might still be in Eastern Europe.

Once again, the Nobel committee has reinforced how much Nazi hatred enriched the intellectual and economic wealth of the United States by driving some of the smartest people out of Europe just because they were Jews. Mario Capecci, who shared this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine, was another who came to the U.S. because of the Holocaust.

If one looks back over the past half-century, it is hard to find an interval of more than a year or two in which a U.S. citizen born elsewhere did not win a Nobel in physics, chemistry, medicine or economics. Some were drawn here by opportunity. Many others fled here for their lives. We should be grateful for their contributions.

St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at elotterman@pioneerpress.com.

Edward Lotterman will present the last of three public lectures at the History Theater in St. Paul on Nov. 5. For more information go to www.edlotterman.com.

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