Young Einsteins and Bohrs may have been inspired to be more creative and harder workers by the dream of winning a Nobel Prize. Since there was no political economy Nobel award before 1968, that could not have been an operative motive for my generation of economists.

In conjunction with its tercentenary celebrations in 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (the central bank of Sweden) instituted a new award, "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" on the basis of an economic commitment by the bank in perpetuity. The award is given by...

I am an early riser, and I had finished my breakfast, brushed my teeth, and was on the way out the door of my Fairfax townhouse, when the telephone call from Stockholm came at 6:32 a.m. on 16 October 1986. My schedule called for a half-day's work at George Mason University before driving down...

I was born April 14, 1921, in Oakland California, spent most of my boyhood in California, with three years in the east and two in the Panama Canal Zone, my father being a naval officer. I attended the University of California, Berkeley (with two years out in Chile), graduating in economics in...