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Magnus #1?
17 year old Magnus Carlsen won a chess game today and is probably now, unofficially, ranked #1 in the world. (World champion Anand lost and fell behind in rating points.) Here is an illuminating recent profile of Magnus. I believe Paul Samuelson is the closest to an economics prodigy we have had. He was thirty-two when his Foundations of Economic Analysis was published but I have heard that he wrote the book at a much earlier age (does anyone know the exact age?). He was probably one of the best economists in the world when he received his undergraduate degree at Chicago at the age of 20. Frank Ramsey is another example of an economics prodigy although he didn't even think of himself as an economist per se. Can you think of other prodigies in mathematical economics? I attribute their scarcity to the relative aesthetic poverty of mathematical economics (for most people it's not that fun or beautiful) rather than the need for complementary experience-acquired wisdom. Do you agree?
Addendum: Andrew Gelman considers statistics.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 5, 2008 at 03:39 PM in Education | Permalink
Comments
Has there ever been a historian prodigy?
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Sep 5, 2008 3:45:33 PM
I think that the purity of the contest has something to do with it. You can prove that you are the best chess player. You can never prove that you are the best economist, or physicist, or what have you.
So if you want to be a chess prodigy, then what you have to accomplish is clear. If you want to be an academic prodigy, what you have to accomplish is less clear. You will probably have to engage in direct persuasion to convince others of your talent. You can't just let your game speak for itself.
Posted by: Arnold Kling at Sep 5, 2008 3:59:50 PM
+1 for Dr. Kling. My guess is that there are whole lot of economists out there who consider themselves prodigies, but have been heretofore unable to "convince others".
My criteria for being an economic prodigy:
1. Most clever commodity choices to illustrate production possibility frontiers (Guns & Healthcare!)
2. Knowing how to pronounce and draw all of the greek letters
3. Solving a "C" problem in Mas-Colell, Winston, & Green
Posted by: Scott at Sep 5, 2008 4:15:43 PM
Scott:
#3 made me laugh, and then cringe.
Luckily, we were almost exclusively assigned level 1 problems from Mas-Colell.
Posted by: bartman at Sep 5, 2008 4:23:24 PM
Mas-Colell, Winston, & Green: When even the solutions manual doesn't help.
Posted by: Scott at Sep 5, 2008 4:34:31 PM
I think Arnold Kling has nailed it.
Posted by: NPTO at Sep 5, 2008 4:49:22 PM
i thought samuelson's foundations was his phd thesis. not sure where i got that.
as for mathematical economics progidies...hmmm...not sure. simon, maybe?
Posted by: camello at Sep 5, 2008 4:55:56 PM
Ronald Coase for a non-mathematical economist prodigy. The "Nature of the firm" was published when he was 27 y.o., but he presented the ideas of the paper at lectures in 1932 (aged 22).
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1991/coase-autobio.html
Posted by: Leo at Sep 5, 2008 5:17:18 PM
Well, the John Bates Clark Awards are here http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/clark_medal.htm and it's a pretty distinguished list. Granted, it leaves a lot of time from 20 to 40. Going back a ways, how about John Stuart Mill?
Posted by: jfalk at Sep 5, 2008 5:27:51 PM
Do economics prodigies put aside their major and minor preconceived notions (insert your favorite economist joke here) to achieve victories (or publish)?
Posted by: Dan Staley at Sep 5, 2008 5:47:08 PM
Kevin M. Murphy
Posted by: Josh Wright at Sep 5, 2008 6:42:46 PM
What does Foundations of Economic Analysis have to do with economics?
Posted by: Bill Stepp at Sep 5, 2008 6:44:33 PM
why is bill stepp a retard?
Posted by: zippy at Sep 5, 2008 8:24:08 PM
Historian prodigies--it seems like there shouldn't be any, but one was Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who published his first book, a biography of Orestes Brownson, when he was 21, and his second, The Age of Jackson, at 27 (that was a classic, and I think won the Pulitzer).
Posted by: monboddo at Sep 5, 2008 8:43:31 PM
How to tell if you're an academic prodigy:
1. Develop a controversial thesis.
2. Convince everyone of its correctness.
3. Live long enough to prove it (or see it proved) wrong.
"Prodigy", when used to mean "productive youth", is relative, especially as what we consider to be old (70 is the new 50) is changing.
Posted by: Eric H at Sep 5, 2008 9:03:11 PM
Is Palin a political Prodigy?
HC
Posted by: Happy Camper at Sep 5, 2008 9:47:33 PM
Nash.
Posted by: AS at Sep 5, 2008 10:58:30 PM
My guess as to why you can't think of mathematical economics prodigies is because the kids with the potential are probably attracted to physics or pure math (because they're really, really good at it).
Posted by: Brett at Sep 6, 2008 1:42:57 AM
The only economist, mathematical or otherwise, is Adam Smith. The rest are pretenders.
Posted by: . at Sep 6, 2008 1:59:51 AM
Paul Samuelson is the closest to an economics prodigy we have had.
[...]
I attribute their scarcity to the relative aesthetic poverty of mathematical economics <...> rather than the need for complementary experience-acquired wisdom.
One of the best Russian wisecrackers said: “An expert is like a gumboil – his range is always lopsided”.
Prodigy or not, Samuelson is basically a trivial commie*)
Now, let’s discuss if experience-acquired wisdom should be just complementary…
*)http://www.mises.org/story/1542
Posted by: Ozornik at Sep 6, 2008 8:41:53 AM
Brett is on to something here. Kids who are good at math (I mean really good, not a pretender like Samuelson) are going to go into science (which economics is not) or get a job at Google.
Re: Samuelson, to put it in terms even a moron like zippy can understand, he was an economist the way LBJ was a humanitarian.
Samuelson tried to graft third rate math onto a failed neoclassical model. He hoodwinked enough people to get a job at MIT (Harvard had the good sense not to hire him, although the real reason was his religion), just as LBJ hoodwinked enough people to get his soft communist program approved.
Posted by: Bill Stepp at Sep 6, 2008 8:50:05 AM
Not sure Tyler. Kenneth Boulding could be named. He published in the EJ as an undergraduate, and then on a Commonwealth Fellowship came to the US. He was so impressive in Knight's class that Knight actually wrote a paper about their exchanges and Boulding never had to earn his PhD. He won the JB Clark Award very early on. But he didn't have the lasting influence on the way OTHERS do economics the way Samuelson did.
Another early maturing scholar in economics would be F. A. Hayek, who at 25 published Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle and in his early 30s published Prices and Production --- both of which had paradigmatic influence for a short period of time.
I guess one could also mention Paul Roemer and new growth theory.
But again, early contributions is one thing (your question), lasting contribution is another and the combination of both (Samuelson's contribution) is still another thing.
And finally to just counter the suggestion that Samuelson was a pretend mathematician -- we have to remember the context and the belief. The Great Depression was just experienced, governments every where thought economists could be the solution. The best and the brightest in that generation were attracted to study economics. The science of economics was emerging from its past as a branch of moral philosophy to be one of social engineering. Read any biography of Tobin, Arrow, Solow, and Samuelson and you will hear this basic motivating force.
It is just not right to argue that he was for his time a mathematical joke, he was to the contrary quite skilled -- just as Arrow and the others were. That of course is different than questioning the ultimate applicability of the mathematical approach to economics. But I just have to respectfully disagree with Brett and Bill Stepp -- at least for the time we are talking about.
Posted by: Peter Boettke at Sep 6, 2008 2:34:47 PM
John Geanakoplos?
Posted by: mkamdar at Sep 6, 2008 3:36:56 PM
I agree with Pete that Samuelson, Arrow et al. were skilled in their own warped way, just as Stalin, Hitler, and FDR were in theirs. They were crypto social engineers (Lange, Lerner, and Leontief come to mind here), and all in intellectual lock step (if not goose step) with the Zeitgeist.
Hayek pointed out in MTTC that the best work in monetary theory was generally done during periods of macroeconomic turmoil. That would certainly apply to his work, but Keynes'?
But let's face it, Samuelson's influence was bad. I can't think of one good thing he did, except retire. Heck, he even defaced his horrible economics text book with his gratuitous and self-absorbed reference in his 1970 ed. (I think the 14th) about the new Nobel Prize in economics, which should have gone to Mises. I think it was Robbins who said that as long as he lived and had anything to do with it, Joan Robinson would not win the Nobel in economics. Too bad no one stepped up to the plate with a similar position in the case of Herr Doktor Professor Samuelson.
Posted by: Bill Stepp at Sep 6, 2008 5:08:51 PM
I believe that Samuelson's undergrad major at Chicago was physics. He got his bachelor's from there in 1935 at the age of 20. His first pubs in econ were in 1937. Foundations is indeed derived from his Ph.D. thesis, with him completing that in 1941 at 26.
Bill Stepp,
Nobels are given for degrees of influence of one's original ideas on economics, not whether or not certain people approve of the policy implictions of their work or their personal politics or personality or whatever. By that criterion, it is totally unsurprising that Samuelson received the second Nobel in econ and is now the most senior living recipient. Whether one likes standard modern neoclassical econ (and I have a lot of criticisms of it), it is Samuelsonian economics above all else. Although many people are not aware of it because his influence is so deeply ingrained into the textbooks, there is no question that he is by far the most influential living economist in the world, for better or worse.
As for Joan Robinson, I once heard a primary source claim that Assar Lindbeck (longtime dominant figure on the Nobel committee) had declared that there were two economists who would get the Nobel over his dead body: Jim Buchanan, who got it and Lindbeck is still alive, and Joan Robinson, who never got it. Her politics got very bizarre in her later life, and rumor has it the committee was afraid she would say outrageous things and insult or punch somebody, but she certainly deserved it, if only for her work on imperfect competition.
BTW, Samuelson did make mathematical errors sometimes, most famously in connection with the reswitching matter in 1966, something that Joan Robinson was also involved with. After he had to admit error in that matter, he declared that "the foundations of economic theory are built on sand."
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Sep 6, 2008 8:48:31 PM
