I have never heard anything about Dale Mortensen but reading
a little about his life and seeing that he lived in the Chicago area most of
his life while teaching at Northwestern University really amazed me because I
realized that I shared a neighborhood with such a decorated man. He first got
into economics when his friend from high school told him about his economics
professor and how his teaching changed his view of the world. After hearing
that Dale picked up a book named The
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior and after reading that book he
realized that economics combined the two interests that he always had,
mathematics and social analysis.
After realizing that economics was the way to go for him he
enrolled in Willamette with a full ride. After graduation he moved around
Pittsburgh getting his degree at Carnegie until finally ending up in Chicago IL working on his thesis paper at Northwestern University in 1965. There he became
proficient in control theory as well as dynamic programming which are still
greatly used today. Later on after many years of independent study and teaching
at Northwestern he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010 “for their analysis of
markets with search frictions” and in May 2011 he was awarded an honorary
Doctor of Science degree from his Alma Mater Willamette University. Over his
lifetime he mainly focused on labor economics, macroeconomics and economic
theory. Along with all of the other achievements next to his name he is also
known for being a president of the Society of Economic Dynamics and a founder
of the Review of Economic Dynamics.
I had Mortensen as a professor for a class on micro foundations of macroeconomics. It was my favorite class in grad school. Mortensen was also a member of my dissertation committee. On a lighter note, Mortensen became chair of the department during my fourth year there. At the time, Evanston was dry and he wanted to have a Happy Hour for the department as a social get together. So he gave me $10 of venture capital to buy a case of beer and a bag of Ice and I supplied the labor of bringing the beer to the department and collecting the money ($.50 per can) which was deposited in an old coffee can, to refurbish the stock. It worked really well at the time. I think since then you can now get a brew at the Union, thought I'm not sure about that. I wish we could do something like that here.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds very interesting. It seems that Mr.Mortensen was actually as good as everyone claims. It must have been a really unique experience to be able to have him as a professor and to get mentored by him especially that years later he was able to win a Nobel Prize. I will have to go to the union and check out if they still offer the brew.
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