Charaiveti: An academic's journey-18

George Akerlof is one of the most imaginative and creative economists around, his Woody Allenesque anxiety-prone and easily-frazzled manners hide his powerful mind

Of the senior professors at MIT other than Samuelson and Solow, I had a somewhat close relationship with Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, a pioneer in development economics. He had grown up in Vienna and taught in England before reaching MIT. He had advised governments in many countries, and was full of stories. In India he knew Nehru and Sachin Chaudhuri well. He had an excited, omniscient way of talking about various things. At the beginning of our many long conversations he asked me what my politics was like. I said “left of centre, though many Americans may consider it too far left