Motivation Monday
- Ludwig von Mises fled for his life– across an ocean–from the Nazis who ransacked his apartment. They seized the files and library they found at that apartment. If he's not the the best economist ever, he's at least in the conversation.
- Not the same stakes as Mises, but James Buchanan was harassed– for one reason or another–at UVA, (then) VPI, and UCLA. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
- Douglass North was a straight C student during undergrad. He also embraced Marxism– a significant intellectual handicap to making any economic sense–until he was in his 30s. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics (and taught Art Carden!)
- Gordon Tullock did not have an undergraduate degree (a peculiarity of the times), but he did have a law degree from the University of Chicago. In his life, he took one course in economics, but it was cut short due to military service. He was a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. He was a "founding father" of a subfield of economics.
- Elinor Ostrom was denied admissions to PhD programs in economics because she was a woman. Instead, she received a PhD in political science. She taught a 4-4 (four courses a semester) at Indiana University for years, teaching requirements that make sustained research very challenging. She won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009.