A skit in economics typically involves a humor transplant of some sort. The following script from the faculty contribution to an annual M.I.T. economics skit party (ca. 1979-80 which is when Luis Tiant pitched for the Yankees) took its inspiration from two greats in American comedy, Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks, who sometimes performed as interviewer and 2,000 year-old man, respectively.
While it is fairly clear that Robert Solow performed and probably wrote the entire skit, the identity of the interviewer still needs to be established. Hint: there is a comment box at the bottom of this post.
The script comes from a file of such Solovian skits that Roger Backhouse has copied during his archival research and has shared with Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.
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Q: You have probably all heard the interviews with the recently discovered 2000-year-old man. We are fortunate to have with us tonight another great find, the 2000-year-old economist, Robert M. Solow. By the way, Dr. Solow, just what does the M stand for?
A: Methuselah, dummy.
Q: Dr. Solow has seen so many skit parties in his life, that he was not very happy about appearing at this one. Do you remember the first skit party you ever went to?
A: No. Skit parties are like hangovers – best thing to do is forget ’em and swear never to do it again. I do have a hazy recollection of an early skit party, I think it was what the one where I first heard the joke about bordered determinants…
Q: What is the joke about border determinants?
A: I don’t know, but they sure laugh[ed] their fool heads off.
Q: Any other recollections about that skit party?
A: Well, you could hear them building pyramids in the background, I remember, and there was this Sphinx-like object, looked a lot like Dick Eckaus… You don’t suppose that, even then???? Nah, forget it.
Q: Turning to more serious issues, what is the biggest change in economics since the old days?
A: Mechanization, by cracky. First the electric typewriter, then the computer, then the Xerox machine [handwritten insert: but not fast enough for (3 or 4 illegible words)]. Nowadays people write papers at the rate they used to wipe their… glasses. I believe Feldstein has solved the problem of hooking the typewriter directly to the Xerox machine, and the whole paper is reproduced without being touched by human hands. There is even a rumor that he has a secret way of getting the paper written without human intervention…
Q: Come come, Dr. Solow, you don’t believe that.
A: Well, have you looked at any of Feldstein’s recent papers? Now in the good old days, stand-up roll-top desks, quill pens, the main-frame abacus, a man thought twice before he wrote a paper. At least he thought once. If only old Tom were here.
Q: Tom who?
A: Tom Gresham. You know: bad working papers drive out good. Not to mention Dave Hume, the inventor of the quantity theory of working papers. As Milton used to say: any way you slice it, it’s still baloney.
Q: Is that Milton Friedman?
A: No, Milton Horowitz, the inventor of the pastrami sandwich. I believe he appears in a footnote in Joskow’s classic mustard-stained work on the subject.
Q: Let’s come to your recent impressions. What do you see as the most important recent development in economics?
A: That’s easy – the increase in the mandatory retirement age to 70. Of course it’s got a long way to go before it does me any good, but I underestimate the DRI Mandatory Retirement Age Monitor estimates the retirement age to be rising at 1.73 years per year, so time is on my side.
Q: Apart from its effects on you personally, why do you think this is an important development?
A: It saves a lot of time at department meetings never to have to make a tenure appointment again. And you know what department meetings are like – even worse than skit parties.
Q: How do you think the change will affect students?
A: They’ll love it. Courses will be the same year after year. Reading lists will never change. Textbooks will go on and on and on. Can you imagine the 200th edition of Dornbusch and Fischer? I hope it’s printed on better paper than the low-grade papyrus of the first edition… I do wonder about Eckaus and that Sphinx…… Exams will be the same year after year. Students hate change. Look at what happened when you fellows tried to change 14.121 this year.
Q: Turning to economic theory, what has been the most important development you have witnessed in the last 2000 years?
A: The two-dimensional diagram.
Q: Be serious.
A: I am serious. Can you imagine Bhagwati, the Picasso of the Production Possibility Locus, trying to fit all those curves in a one-dimensional diagram, which was all we had in the old days? There wasn’t hardly room for anything besides the axis.
Q: Come, come. Bhagwati would find a solution for that little difficulty. Who needs an axis?
A: Maybe so, but can you imagine four-color one-dimensional diagrams? How could we have expensive textbooks without four-color diagrams? How could we have expensive professors without expensive textbooks? How could……
Q: OK, OK. What is the second most important development in economic theory in your lifetime?
A: The subscript.
Q: Don’t you know the difference between trivia and serious economic theory?
A: Sure. Trivia are worth remembering, but serious economics is OK to forget.
Q: Maybe we better stick to trivia…
A: I was just kidding. I really know the answer. There is no difference between trivia and serious economic theory.
Q: Tell us about the most interesting experience you ever heard of an economist having?
A: Easy. Happened to an agricultural economist I knew, feller named Samuelson, farm boy from Gary, Indiana. He was digging on the farm one day, checking out the law of diminishing returns, and he found a potato growing with a nickel in it. Marvelous thing. Folks came from miles away to see a potato with a nickel in it. Old Samuelson frittered away the rest of his life looking for another potato with the nickel in it. Never could find one. He did find a couple with three cents in them, but somehow it wasn’t the same. Never accomplished another thing, old Samuelson. Wonder whatever became of him? He’d be 2009, I reckon. By the way, whatever became of that other farmer, Weitzman?
Q: You mean Chaim Weitzman, the founding father of Israel? His last words were: you don’t have to convince me, Professor [Frank] Fisher, I’m Jewish too.
A: No, I mean Marty Weitzman, old quick and dirty, the lion of Levittown.
Q: Why do you ask?
A: Reminds me of the fellow I used to know, a Secretary of the Treasury named Hamilton……
Q: Reminds you of who? Oh, I get it, they both got killed in the dual.
A: Watch out, Buster – the agreement was that I tell the jokes and you prove the theorems.
Q: All right. Let’s get away from personalities. What do you think of recent macro theories?
A: Not much.
Q: What about rational expectations?
A: If there were any truth in that, it would have been thought up long ago.
Q: Not necessarily. The old-timers could have thought that someone would think of it, without thinking of it themselves.
A: That’s true, but the old-timers were too sensible to think that anyone would think a thought like that.
Q: How about the quantity theory?
A: Ingenious.
Q: Really?
A: Imagine saying that velocity is so stable that only money matters, and so unstable that no use can be made of the theory, and imagine getting away with both statements.
Q: But what is macroeconomics left with then?
A: Well, the old Ioto-Sigma Lamba-Mu [Greek for “IS-LM”] curves were good enough for Aristotle, it’s good enough for me.
Q: Would you care to comment on the theory of built-in stabilizers?
A: If you’re not going to be serious, we might as well go watch a ballgame. I understand Louis Tiant, the 2000-year-old pitcher is going for the Yankees.
Q: Use your 2000-year-old imagination. I’ll give you an example of built-in stabilization – Social Security.
A: How so?
Q: The less likely it is that anyone will ever be able to collect benefits, the likelier it becomes that they make even more money consulting on Social Security. Take [Peter] Diamond, for example.
A: You take Diamond.
Q: No thanks. Imagine a man leaving a perfectly good career in public finance to go into law and economics and make a hash out of both fields.
A: Stick to the straight-man lines, please.
[Handwritten insert begins here]
Q: What do you think of the proliferation of journals?
A: I think it is terrific. Of course it has been going on for a long time – ever since BJEA, the Babylonian Journal of Economic Analysis was challenged by the SEJ, the Sumerian Economic Journal.
What I particularly like is the increased specialization. Like JHR, the Journal of Human Regressions and JME, the Journal of Mathematical Existence.
Q: The Journal of Mathematical Existence – isn’t that the one that started with the famous 2-line proof: I count, therefore I am?
A: Yes and was followed by a 47 page proof that without continuity existence was still generic.
I also like this trend toward paired journals.
Q: Paired journals?
A: Yes, like the two Harvard journals – one publishes theory without measurement and the other measurement without theory.
And then there’s the 2 JPE’s – the Journal of Public Economics and the Journal of Private Enterprise.
[handwritten insert ends]
Q: What do you see as the greatest danger facing the economics profession?
A: The threatened extension of truth-in-lending legislation to truth-in-teaching. We could have the biggest rash of malpractice suits since Nicky Kaldor retired.
Q: I think you’re onto something there. How foresighted of this department to have hired an expert on malpractice like Marilyn Simon [joined faculty 1977-78 academic year], the world-famous author of Unnecessary Surgery – The View from the Inside.
A: Simon only writes about malpractice – [Jeffrey E.] Harris actually does it, I understand.
Q: You seem to have discovered a lot since you turned up around here. Anything else new on the malpractice front?
A: There’s a rumor that the University of Chicago has had to recall all the degrees issued during the last five model years.
Q: You mean…
A: Right. Defective transmission mechanisms.
Q: Gad. Are there any good defenses against malpractice suits in your long and varied experience?
A: You can hire a mathematician for the faculty.
Q: What good does that do?
A: How the hell would I know? All I can say is that every department seems to be hiring mathematicians these days. It’s got to be for something.
Q: I’m looking for some more tried and true defense.
A: There’s always the Long-and-Variable Lags defense. See the Supreme Court decision in Tobin versus Friedman, in which Friedman successfully argued that first it’s true, second he never said it, and third wait till next year.
Q-: How about the Roy Lopez Defense?
A: You mean P–K4, P-K4; N-KB3, N-QB3; B-QN5, P-QR3?
Q: No, I mean Roy Lopez, the middle line-backer for the Princeton Economics Department – anyone sues for malpractice, he breaks their legs.
A: Sounds good. There’s also the classic defense due to Stanley Fischer, that truth should be indexed. Today’s malpractice is tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.
Q: Speaking of conventional wisdom, have you spoken with Professor Galbraith since your return?
A: No, but I have been reading his latest book: Why Are People Poor?
Q: I’ll bite; why are people poor?
A: Not enough income, according to Galbraith.
Q: Does he have a remedy?
A: Move to Switzerland.
Q: I see.
A: I can’t wait until the news reaches Calcutta.
Q: One last question, to return to the subject with which we started. Do you see any trends in student skits?
A: Longer.
Q: Longer and funnier?
A: Longer.
Q: Any final comment?
A: Let me ask you a question. What do you consider the most remarkable thing in this interview?
Q: That’s easy. We never mentioned IBM.
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Papers of Robert M. Solow. Box 83.
Image Source: Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks performing the 2000 year old man from NPR KNAU, Arizona public radio article “Could You Talk To a Caveman?” (May 9, 2013) .