Re: Franco Modigliani, Economics Nobelist by rjon on Sun 11 Feb 2007 05:31 PM PST Profile Permanent Link
While I was in graduate school at MIT during the mid-70s, I helped pay my tuition by working during the summers with a small house-painting company that my first wife, Susan, and I had formed with several of our Sufi friends. One of the homes we ended up painting belonged to Serena and Franco Modigliani.
I had almost no formal background in economics, so only knew that Franco was an MIT professor. We got to know Serena while painting the outside of their home, and she eventually invited us to also paint their inside rooms. This led to us being invited to lunch many times and on a few occasions to dinner with her and Franco.
When Serena learned that I was studying System Dynamics (SD) under Prof. Jay Forrester, one of the founders of Cybernetics, she encouraged me to engage in economic discussions with Franco. Since I was studying mainly the global modeling aspects of SD (specifically what was known as the "World Model") and not the other major project called the "National Economic Model," I was blissfully ignorant of Prof. Modigliani's stellar reputation in economics.
He received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1985. Paul Samuelson, also an Economics Nobelist, said: "Franco Modigliani could have been a multiple Nobel winner. When he died he was the greatest living macroeconomist. He revised Keynesian economics from its Model-T, Neanderthal, Great Depression model to its modern-day form."
So, there I was arguing economic theory with Franco Modigliani over Serena's delightful dinners. He seemed to enjoy our conversations, enough so that we were invited back several times, and his European graciousness was sufficient that I never suspected who he really was. Talk about "fools rushing in where angels fear to tread" ... ~ ron
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