Tag: Oi

 

Future generations of economics graduate students and junior faculty, having been raised in a world of TikTok and able to bring the tools of sound and image processing to their media productions, will probably find the following sixty-some year old Chicago economics skit dull reading. Even the curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, a veteran of this art-form from M.I.T. in the mid-1970s [cf. Analysis in Wonderland, Wizard of E-52-383c, Casablank], finds this Chicago artifact in need of a major revise-and-resubmit. But we transcribe our artifacts as we find them, with minor editorial revisions to improve formatting, corrections for obvious misspellings, and annotations that have become necessary due to the passage of time. Material in square brackets (in italics) have been added to the transcription.

For those who wish to compare the skit with the text of Julius Caesar by Shakespeare. 

_____________________

About the authors

Claire E. Friedland

1929. Born 20 November in New York City.
1951. B.A. Queens College, City University of New York. Phi Beta Kappa.
1955. M.A. University of Chicago.
1957-59. Statistical analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
1959-71. Research Economist, University of Chicago (research assistant to George Stigler).

See: Chicago’s Hidden Figure: A Chat with Claire Friedland on her Work with George Stigler. Promarket (website), November 22, 2017.

William A. Niskanen

1933. Born 13 March in Bend Oregon.
1954. A.B. Harvard University.
1955. M.A. University of Chicago.
1962. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: The Demand for Alcoholic Beverages.
1957-61. Defense policy analyst at RAND.
1962-64. Director of special studies in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
1964-70. Director of Program Analysis Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
1970-1972. Assistant director for evaluation of the Office of Management and Budget.
1972-75. Professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
1975-80. Chief economist of Ford Motor Company.
1980-81. Professor in the Graduate School of Management, UCLA
1981-85. Member of the Council of Economic Advisers.
1985-2008. Chairman of the board of directors, Cato Institute.
2008-11.  Chairman emeritus, Cato Institute.
2011. Died October 26 in Washington, D.C.

See: William A. Niskanen, A Life Well Lived (Cato Institute, 2012). Above screen-shot is from that memorial presentation.

Walter Yasuo Oi

1929. Born July 1 in Los Angeles, CA.
1952. B.S. UCLA.
1954. M.A. UCLA.
1958-62. Research Economist, Northwestern University.
1961. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: Labor as a Quasi-Fixed Factor of Production.
1962-67. University of Washington
1967-. Professor, Graduate School of Management, University of Rochester.
1993. Elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1995. Named Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association.
2000. Received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.
2013. Died December 24 in Brighton, N.Y.

Image Source: University of California Los Angeles. Yearbook Southern Campus, 1952, p. 176.

_____________________

[Opening] Song to the tune of
“Jamaican Farewell“.

Prelims are done,

‘Tis a night for fun,

Don’t let worries

upset your equilibrium.

The faculty’s here,

They’re drinkin’ the beer,

The price of the liquor

For them is too dear.

On our play

We’ll soon raise up the curtain

You may judge it

true false or uncertain
[Note: a good chunk of the canonical prelim exam at Chicago featured questions having this format: example ]

Ficticious characters are in this scene

They bear no resemblance to Human bein’s.

Let the liquor flow

get on with the show,

Don’t let the faculty get out the door

They want to go home

to their little babes

To see if they’ve finished

with the prelim. grades.

_____________________

BRAVE OLD WORLD

A Tragic Comedy in Three Acts by the Adam Smithsonian Players.

by
Clare [sic] E. Friedland, William A. Niskanen,
& Walter Y. Oi

Cast of Characters:

Julius Freemarket [Milton Friedman]: Popular leader of Marshallia and Head of the Ministry of Money.

Capt. Marc Caganthony [Phillip Cagan]: Freemarket’s first lieutenant and pilot of the plane.

Llaius Mysticus: [The initials happen to match Lloyd Metzler. The double “Ll” is the give-away.] A soothsayer, and prophet of things to come.

Gregaryous Wrecker [Gary Becker]: A dope peddler.

A. Sovereign Consumer [Representative Graduate Student]: Exerciser of the right of free choice and beneficiary of the fruits of capitalism.

Carlos Cassius [Perhaps a reference to Carl F. Christ?]: Proprietor of the “Do it Yourself, Ph.D. Components” shop. A leading citizen of the community.

H. Greggo Brutus [H. Gregg Lewis]: Seller of Ph.D.’s New and Used, also a leading member of the business community.

G. Dale Jolly [D. Gale Johnson]: The Key Resource Person of the Ministry of Money.

Sancho Humbugger: Former brainchild of the Chicagocrats. [probably played by Marto A. Ballesteros, Chicago Ph.D. 1957].

Act I: Bliss

Narrator: The scene takes place in the brave old world of 1894 — or some permutation thereof.

If this scene seems utopian, a slight word of explanation may be in order.

In an attempt to conform to the justice and impartiality of the marketplace, a new electoral system has been inaugurated, according to which one dollar equals one vote. Thus, the Chicagocrats (with the aid of John D. [Rockefeller] & sundry other foundations) have become the majority party and a new regime has been established based upon the principle of free enterprise, in which Julius Freemarket has become the popular leader of the entire stationary state of Marshallia. All artificial market restrictions and evidences of paternalism, such as child labor laws, pure food and drug acts and compulsory sewage disposal, have been abolished; and in response to price incentives of the purest kind, we find many new industries flourishing in the marketplace.

The scene opens as we find Julius Freemarket, together with his trusted lieutenant Marc Caganthony, taking their morning constitutional — as all important people must — observing the well oiled functioning of the competitive mechanism.

_______________

Enter Freemarket and Caganthony

_______________

Free: Isn’t it wonderful that all is in static equilibrium?

Cagant: Yes, it certainly is.

Free: Except, of course, those things which are in moving equilibrium.

Cagant: Yes, of course.

_______________

Enter soothsayer, Llaius Mysticus

_______________

Llaius: Julius! Julius!

Free: Ha! Who calls? I hear a tongue shriller than all music calling “Julius!”. Speak, Freemarket is turned to hear.

_______________

Llaius comes up to Freemarket and tugs at sleeve.

_______________

Llaius: Beware the Ides of March.

_______________

Freemarket, turning to Caganthony

_______________

Free: What man is that?

Cagant: A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.

Free: It is only Llaius Mysticus. He is a dreamer, a dreary prophet of gloom and doom. He has no empirical basis for his prophesies. Let us leave him and visit with Gregaryous Wrecker.

_______________

Enter Gregaryous Wrecker, singing “I’m an Old Dope Peddler”
[Tom Lehrer song (1953), Lyrics, Performance]
Upon completion of song, enter A. Sovereign Consumer (coded “Cons.”)

_______________

Cons.: (in hushed tone) Psst,…psst…hey buddy.

Free: Don’t be bashful young man. Just step right up there and tell the gentleman what you want. There’s nothing to be afraid of now. The dollar’s almighty.

Cons.: What’s today’s price on king-sized, filter tipped, Tiajuana marijuana?…Fresh ones.

Wreck: Current price is one dollar,… but March futures are fifty cents.

Cons.: Yeah? So high?

Wreck: Well, you see, the idea is this. We’ve got the phenonmener [sic] that the stuff has become a teenage fad, ever since the kids found out Alvis Regs-ley [Elvis Presley] is a user.

[Almost the same word “phenomener” appears in the Tom Lehrer song “Don’t Major in Physics”. Lyrics, Backstory.

…More often a king weds a commoner
Than a physicist makes a housewife,
For they only are versed in phenomener
⁠That have nothing to do with real life.

….

I like physics and my girl does not.
I tried showing her my apparatus,
But a blank smile was all that I got.
She asked me why I was in Physics,
⁠And advised me to transfer to Ec,
And whenever I tried to talk Physics,
All she wanted to do was to neck! ]

Cons.: You got anything cheaper?

Wreck: Well, advertised brands, like Tiajuana Marijuana sell for a few cents more than cheaper substitutes, but they’re worth it for the prestige.

Cons.: Prestige hell! I’ll have plenty of that when I get my Ph.D. Give me the cheap one.

_______________

Exit, Gregaryous Wrecker, as A. Sovereign Consumer moves from that booth to the booth of Carlos Cassius who is found on the telephone.

_______________

Cass.: “Do it Yourself, Ph.D. Components”, … Carlos Cassius speaking. Well, I’ve got simple and multiple regressions, higher r-squares are a bit more expensive. I’ve got a sale on permanent and transitory variables (in an aside to audience) I stole these out of Speedy Read’s [“speed reading” is implicit, one may suppose. The gendered pronoun makes it clear that Margaret Reid was being referred to] wastebasket when she wasn’t looking——— Oh! You’re at Haskell High. [Perhaps a reference to “Haskell Hall”?] Well then, I’ve got some spurious correlations here, ——— very cheap———I lose money on every one of these, but I make it up in the volume. … No, we can’t guaranty that you’ll pass your thesis seminar with these. (pause) Alright, thank you very much for calling. (turns to consumer). What can I do for you?

Cons.: Wow! I see you got a new jomping [sic] point. I’ll take it.

Cass.: Well, that ought to just about complete your set.

_______________

A. Sovereign Consumer moves away from Cassius’s desk to that of H. Greggo Brutus, who is found on the telephone.

_______________

Brutus: This is Greggo Brutus speaking … “Labor Exchange, Ph.D.’s new and used”.

Well, I’ve got a Ph.D. in physics for $2,000, and one in economics from Cambridge for $3,000. (pause) What? … you’ve got only $350? Well, the best I can do for you then, is a Masters degree in planning. (pause) Very fine, I’ll have Mrs. Jones send it out to you first thing in the morning.

(in an aside to audience) Great Jupiter! Here comes another one of those Israelis. Every time I sell one of them a degree, I begin to worry about my job. [Possibly a reference to Zvi Griliches (Ph.D., 1957)?]

(to consumer) Good morning.

Cons.: I want to buy a Chicago Ph.D.

Brutus: I have one here that I’m selling for a customer named Frank Fright, [Frank Knight] who’s decided to give it up and go into Hindu Philosophy. It’s a little old, but I can throw in his endowed chair, and 400 of his reprints, at a price that’s a bargain for the set.

Cons.: A tie in sale? You’re nothing but a reactionary. … a throwback to the old regime. (As he walks off) Heretic! Subversive! Thief!

Brutus: (reflectively) Could it be possible, that I, H. Greggo Brutus have been throwing sand into the wheels of the competitive machine? Perhaps, I have erred ——— yes he is right. Oh those Israelis, they see through everything.

Act II — Scene I

Props: table, chair, blackboard, sign: “Freemarket Watches You”.

Nar: So…, life in Marshallia goes merrily on its way.

Guided by the velvet glove of the invisible iron hand and watched by Freemarket’s careful eye, consumers happily go around computing their marginal utilities, and entrepreneurs are rocking happily in the cradle of competitive equilibrium.

Freemarket has preserved only one authority from the government of the decadent Past — the Ministry of Money. This Ministry is really quite harmless, as its activities are entirely financed out of the secular rate of growth of the money supply. As the only equipment of the Authority consists of a printing press and an airplane [by the end of the 1960s Friedman’s metaphor had morphed into one using helicopters], the costs are in any case quite meagre.

We now visit the Headquarters (and sole office) of the Ministry in a tower at Halfway Airport [“Midway” was the actual name of Chicago’s airport], to see Freemarket’s weekly meeting with his Key Resource Person, G. Dale Jolly, Time: Morning, March 1.

Free: Everything in equilibrium today as usual, Jolly?

Jolly: (Laughs) I have a catastrophe to report, sir.

Free: Catastrophe? Impossible! We’ve purged all the reactionary elements, smoothed all the frictions, removed all the controls, dissolved the rigidities, exiled all the labor organizers, and turned Harvard Yard [Note: the “competition” in Cambridge Mass was still Harvard and not M.I.T.] into a parking lot.

Jolly: It’s the price index, Freemarket; remember, you told me never to take my eyes off the price index.

Free: Of course; this is the variable we chose to stabilize as a guide to our monetary policy. (aside) See my JPE article of 1951, reprinted in my Essays in Negative Economics [reference to Friedman’s “Essays in Positive Economics” (1953)], only $5.75, at the bookstore.

Jolly: See for yourself: The Multivac [a fictional supercomputer that was to appear in over a dozen Isaac Asimov science fiction stories] shows that wholesale prices have dropped 20 points in the last week.

Free: A random-transitory-stochastic type shock, no doubt. Nothing to worry about. What is the money supply, Jolly?

Jolly: (Laughing) I think I lost the series, sir. It was either lost or stolen; in this section of Chicago you can’t be sure which.

Free: You lost the whole series?

Jolly: Not all of it. Some of the data is…

Free: (Quickly) You mean “data are”

Jolly: Data is, are, (we didn’t use such fancy language down on the farm), not all missing.

Free: This poses a serious problem. Capt. Caganthony, what do the rules state for this situation?

Cagant: (typically thumbing through phone book) Rule 412, Section A2 states that 80,000 assorted $10, $20, and $50 bills be dropped in a Latin Square design [see the Wikipedia article, probably application in statistics] over each city of over one million population.

Jolly: (Leaving) I won’t rest until I find the lost money data, sir. (Exit)

Free: Marc, the loss of that money series is quite serious, but I trust Jolly.

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep of nights,
Blond Cassius, for example, has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

Cagant: Fear Cassius not, Freemarket, he’s not dangerous.

Free: Would he were fatter.

Such men as he be never at hear’ts [sic] ease
While they behold models better than their own.

Cagant: But the rules, the rules!

Free: Oh yes, the rules. Your watch should read 0800, Capt. Caganthony. Release the money over Chicago at exactly 0900 hours and over the other specified cities at subsequent 3-hour intervals.

Cagant: Roger, and off. (Exits, runs askew, whirring like a plane.)

_______________

Sound effects: Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.

_______________

Act II — Scene 2

Props: Table, chair, candle lit on table.

Nar: Let your eyes now adjust to the darkness of a cellar at the home of H. Greggo Brutus. The time, the evening of March 14.

_______________

On stage, Brutus. Enter Cassius.

_______________

Brut: How now Cassius. How goes the night?

Cass: (Shaking money from his coat) Did I go thru a tempest dropping money? This disturbed sky is not to walk in. But worst of all, paper has risen so high in price, due to this mad money-printing that I am forced to run my correlations on the backs of twenty dollar bills.

Brut: This glut of currency is slowing the chariots on the streets. Jolly reports it is smothering the crops. Who knows what adverse expectations it may cause in the marketplace.

Cass: All was prosperous until the ministry of money was moved to action. And now prices fall all the more as each new planeload of manna falls. It is as though the fundamental equation might contain some fundamental flaw.

Brut: Speak not such heresy in my house Cassius. Freemarket is a true and noble Marshallian. Did he not refuse the title of Supreme Bureaucrat when it was offered him by Cagananthony? I am certain he will be swayed from this policy when Jolly finds the lost money series and he sees the extreme to which he has gone.

Cass: Why must he sit in his airport tower and wait upon the money series? Is the error of his ways not obvious to every Marshallian who but looks about him? Brutus, think not that Freemarket is above the weaknesses of ordinary men. Did I not swim with him in the Tiber the other day and see him nearly carried away by the foam? So it is with this new power with which he seems drunk. Has not our noble sage, Frank Fright [Knight], warned us that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely”? [Knight clearly was quoting Lord Acton (1889)]

Brut: There is truth in what you say. Freemarket promised us an economy free of all government interference. (Did he not condemn Adam Smith for suggesting that a state might build roads and schools and provide for the common defense?) Yet he insisted on this one ministry which would harmlessly follow a set of prescribed rules. And now he blindly follows his model and his rules, we know not where. Perhaps he has started us on the dreaded Road to Serfdom. [Homage à Hayek (1944)]

Cass: Then you are with us Brutus. I have moved already some of the noblest-minded Marshallians to undergo with me a plan. But there is none among us who is schooled in planning anymore.

Brut: Wait? …approach Sancho Humbugger, the brain-child of the Chicagocrats before Freemarket’s victory! He was suspected of deviationist tendencies and exiled to some southern outpost.

_______________

Enter Sancho, to Latin tune, wearing a huge sombrero and serape.

_______________

Sanche: Ole! (with wide sweep of hand)

Cass: Sancho! You’ve been away too long. Was it hot down there?

San: No, Chile.

Brut: Time enough later for such nonsense. Sancho, how do you happen to be in Marshallia?

San: Well, I was on this luxury airliner, see, when I starts up a conversation with this dame sitting next to me see. It seems she’s a white sox fan like me, see. (She wuz wit some slob who just made a killing selling cheap paper to the Marshallian Ministry of Money.) And she tells me how going from Professor to Bureaucrat was too much for Freemarket, and so he’s dropping this dough like mad. So I thought I’d take a hop to Marshallia and see if I could do something to help maybe.

Cass: Sancho, you must construct a plan for us to restore the price index to its former level, by any devious means, even (ugh?) Public Works, so as to stop the exercise of Freemarket’s excessive power with (Stage whisper) countervailing power.
[Clear reference to Galbraith’s American Capitalism: The Theory of Countervailing power (1952)]
Our whole way of life rests on your shoulders, Sancho.

San: You need a plan eh? I get the picture. Let’s see now.
(Paces nervously, mumbling, grabs for pencil & paper, scribbles furiously.)
I’ve got it! This is our action! We’re home!

_______________

All join in huddle.

_______________

Brut: (emerging) Do so; and let no man abide this deed but we the doers.

Act II — Scene III

Props: telephone, table, chair, sign (askew)

Nar: More men than these are disturbed on this troubled eve.

Free: (Alone, tired, slowly walking the room.)

Nor heaven, nor earth have been at peace tonight. That phone has screamed at each hour of the clock. (phone rings)
Jolly? What? The second derivative of prices is now falling? Oh, well, I’ll merely follow rule 205 next. Go bid the Multivac do present calculate and bring me its clanking opinion of success.
(picks up phone again.)
Capto Caganthony? He’s asleep? (With amazement and anger.) Give him this urgent message: “Another plane.” No, that’s all. He’ll know what to do.

Act III — Scene I

Props: Desk, chair, sign, blackboard.

Nar: The ides of March are come…but not gone. And, as we shall see, the events of the early day are false portent of the fate which for Freemarket lay.

_______________

Freemarket sits at desk, chin in hands, brooding.
Capt. Caganthony is at stage left and rear. Enter Jolly, whistling “Whistle as you work”. [From the Disney Film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937)]

_______________

Jolly: Tra, la, la, la, la, la, la (Whistles again.)

Free: Jolly, this is no time for glee; look, now my hair has started to fall out. [merely gratuitous bald-shaming of Friedman]

Jolly: (Laughing) But I’ve found it! Under my tractor seat cushion!

Free: My hair?

Jolly: No, that’s been gone too long. I found the lost money data.

Free: Thank Jupiter. Oh, Jolly, I could kiss you. Now all our troubles are over.  Did you hear that, Marc, he’s found it. I knew I could trust you, Jolly.

Cagant: Now all our troubles are over. (In a monotone)

Free: (To Jolly) Tell me, did you put the data through the Multivac?

Jolly: Yes I did. But there are some strange results. (Laughing) Prices are still falling in all the cities on which money was dropped. But there has been a phenomenal reflation in the backward river valleys of the South and West.

Free: Are you certain?

Jolly: Yes, if my assumptions are true.

Free: That’s irrelevant. Just the facts, Jolly, just the facts. [Probably an indirect homage à Sgt. Joe Friday from the then popular radio/TV series Dragnet]

Jolly: (Laughing) Of course, Freemarket, Just the facts. There are disturbing signs that the permanent component of the income of farm laborers has increased substantially.

Free: Impossible, my book is not published yet. Those cotton pickers will be buying Ph.D.’s next. (To Cagant) Marc, are you sure you dropped the money only in large metropolitan areas?

Cagant: (Monotone) Your instructions were carried out explicitly, so help me Mints. [Friedman’s old Chicago teacher in money matters, Lloyd Mints]

Free: (To himself, disturbed) The money must have been dropped in the wrong place. Marc, when was your last eye check?

Cagant: Why, when I worked for the National Bureau.

Free: That explains it, they hire anybody. Come, Marc, sit here.

_______________

Cagant is blindfolded, turned away from blackboard toward audience.

_______________

Free: Now, as I write these symbols on the board, read them back to me. [as if reading a chart in an eye examination]

Cagant: Delta, Gamma, Beta, Alpha (Freemarket smiles), X, G, M=KPZ. (Freemarket actually writes M=KPY)

Free: Z? (Angrily) Not Z…Y!

Cagant: Why? [punning on “Y” and “Why” sounding alike] I don’t know. I saw Z as in Z. I said, Zed. [perhaps just a silly rhyme “said”/“Zed”]

Free: (Calmly) Don’t repeat yourself, Marc. Let’s go over this last line again.

Cagant: M= KPZ

Free: Now, Marc, you don’t really want to go back to the National Bureau, do you? You know what these symbols are.

Cagant: You look at Y, I look at Z. Utility preferences differ, you know.

Free: (In a rage) This is a matter of doctrine, not of consumer choice!

Cagant: (Angrily) Under the new free-market system, this is a matter to be settled in the market place, not by a government decree.

_______________

Cagan [sic] stalks out agrily.

_______________

Free: (Upset) Jolly, the fundamental Truth of the Fundamental Equation has been questioned Call the Chamber of Chaos into session — I need reassurance.

Jolly: Stand firm, Freemarket these men are fallible; (in a shocked tone) they could even utter a non-sequitur! (Exit)

_______________

Enter Cassius, Brutus, and Humbugger

_______________

All except Free: Hail, Freemarket, Hail. You called for us?

Free: Yes, come in, Cassius, come in, noble Brutus. Ah, worthy Humbugger is with you. Good. Let me put our problem in my own terms.

Sancho: (Aside to Cassius and Brutus) Our cause is dead if he does.

Cass: (Quickly) No, glorious Freemarket, we know the problem and we know its cause. Pray hear friend Sancho speak for us.

San: Witness, noble Freemarket, how, with these quick strokes, if

(Writing on blackboard, allowing audience to see)

I = I*
G = G*
C = a + bY
and
Y = C+ I + G
then we’re home!

Free: Great Jupiter, is this the Keynes’ mutiny [punning Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny (1952)]? This is heresy!

San:     Heresy or no,

We have this to show,
Prices still fall in Chicago.
But in the West and South, on my advice,
Migrant workers have picked up quite a slice
Of permanent income; the rest don’t rhyme so nice.

Free: (Sharply) Doesn’t rhyme as nicely. Your grammar is abominable, Sancho.

San:     By organizing unions to boost their wages,

By building dams to water their crops,
Income increased first by stages,
And then by leaps, and bounds, and hops.

Free: (in fury) Damn! Damn! Damn!

San:     Yes Freemarket.

It is Dams we built this day.
And thru these public works disaster did allay.

Free:    I must warn thee, Sancho.

These symbols and your reasoning
Might fire the blood of ordinary men,
And turn pre-ordinance and first decree
into the law of children.

(Sternly)

Thy model, and thyself, by decree, are banished.
Know all, Freemarket doth not wrong, nor
without cause will he be satisfied.

Cass: I, Cassius, do beg enfranchisement of Sancho’s model.

Free:

I could be well moved if I were as you.
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me.
But I am as constant as velocity

(Becoming emotional)

Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no variable in the literature.
Cassius, stand you with Humbugger?

_______________

Cassius walks in front of Freemarket to stand beside Sancho, and remains silent.

_______________

Free:    (Disturbed)

Good Brutus, when all is said and done
Stand you with models with equations four,
Or with the Fundamental One?

_______________

Brutus silently joins Cassius and Sancho.

 _______________

Et tu, Brute! Then die, Freemarket, die!

_______________

Freemarket clutches at sign, pulls it down, and collapses on table.
The whole cast gathers around the table on which Freemarket lies, as an audience for the following speech:

_______________

Cagant:

Friends, Marshallians, Chicagocrats, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Freemarket, not to praise him.
The models that men build live after them,
Their meaning oft interred in their books.
So let it be with Freemarket.

All (including MAB): [almost certainly, Marto A. Ballesteros]

How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted o’er
In states unborn and accents yet unknown.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 129, Folder “Faculty skits, ca. 1960s.

Image Sources: The Tusculum portrait, possibly the only surviving sculpture of Caesar made during his lifetime, now housed at the Archaeological Museum in  Turin, Italy.
Milton Friedman portrait: Hoover Institution.

_______________

Note on Marto A. Ballesteros identification for “MAB”

Fellow 1957—Asst Prof. 1960 at the University of Chicago according to the 1969 AEA Directory of Members.

Publications

Argentine Agriculture, 1908-1954: A Study in Growth and Decline By Marto A. Ballesteros (University of Chicago, 1958). (PhD thesis)

Ballesteros, Marto A. Desarrollo agrícola chileno, 1910-1955. Santiago: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales,1965. p. 7-40.

Newspaper Accounts

The Peninsula Times Tribune (13 Sep 1957). Marriage to Jill Sidnell Geer of Los Altos. Off to Chile to live for one year. His parents are from Madrid, his undergraduate studies were at the University of Madrid, MA and PhD at the University of Chicago. Just received his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago, Junior fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for a year  1956-57.

The Galion Inquirer (23 Sep 1957) that “[Balesteros] will be doing research and teaching in economics at the Universidad Catolica de Chile, Centro De Investigaciones Economicas, Santiago, Chile, under sponsorship of the University of Chicago and the International Cooperation Administration of the U.S. Government”.

Miami Herald (8 Apr 1965), “Dr. Marto Ballesteros, chief of the Pan American Union’s public finance unit”.