My friend Tawni Hunt Ferrarini told
me this morning that Doug North passed away last night. Douglass C. North was,
of course, a Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economics. I first, discovered his
work while I was a graduate student in economic history at the London School of
Economics in 1984-85. I read “A Framework for Analyzing the State in Economic
History” published in a special issue of Explorations in Economic History
dedicated to his dissertation adviser M.M. Knight. I still love the way he used
such a simple model to think about such a complicated problem. When I decided to
go back to graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in economics, I wanted to study
with him. I became his research assistant and he was the chair of my
dissertation committee. He was everything I had hoped for as a professor and
more than I could have imagined as a human being. I felt like I had won the
lottery. I still feel that way.
I wanted to write about what he meant
to me, both intellectually and as a friend, but I can’t. Maybe another day I
will, but not today.
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