5/2/2021
An Unusual History: A Conversation Between Two Economists About the Economics Department at the University of Chicago
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Editor’s note [ProMarket]: The current debate in economics seems to lack a historical perspective. To try to address this deficiency, we decided to launch a Sunday column on ProMarket focusing on the historical dimension of economic ideas. You can read all of the pieces in the series here.
housands of pages have been written about the Department of Economics at Chicago. Some works have been celebratory and others have been critical; some have been deep, and others have been superficial. This piece, based on a longer paper, is about the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, as seen by one of its long-term faculty members —Arnold C. Harberger—and one of its former students, Sebastian Edwards. The period covered is from 1947 through 1982. That is, 35 years that span form the time Harberger arrived as a student to the time Edwards graduated with a PhD. The approach that we have decided to follow is somewhat unusual: the paper has the form of a conversation between two people from different generations, two colleagues and friends, two professional economists who have traveled together around the world providing advice to governments on almost every continent.