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How I Became an Economist

Author

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  • Samuelson, Paul A.

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Abstract

From one point of view my studying economics was the result of accidental blind chance. Prior to graduating from high school I was born again at 8:00 a.m., January 2, 1932, when I first walked into the University of Chicago lecture hall. That day's lecture was on Malthus's theory that human populations would reproduce like rabbits until their density per acre of land reduced their wage to a bare subsistence level where an increased death rate came to equal the birth rate. So easy was it to understand all this simple differential equation stuff that I suspected (wrongly) that I was missing out on some mysterious complexity.

Suggested Citation

  • Samuelson, Paul A., 2003. "How I Became an Economist," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 1970-4, Nobel Prize Committee.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:nobelp:1970_004
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    Cited by:

    1. Brent A. Evans & Paul W. Grimes & William E. Becker, 2012. "What Led Eminent Economists to Become Economists?," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 83-98, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    autobiography;

    JEL classification:

    • A00 - General Economics and Teaching - - General - - - General

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