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| Paschim |
Posted
on 05-Apr-02 09:00 PM
Described once by TIME magazine as "probably the most important economist in the world", Jeffrey D. Sachs, star student and controversial professor at Harvard University for nearly 30 years joins Columbia come July.
A great loss for Harvard, but a tremendous gain for Columbia. Unlike Joe Stiglitz, last year's Nobel laureate in economics, Sachs' decision to join Columbia is believed to have been inspired more by intellectual than personal reasons. Or so they say:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/02/04/jeffreySachs.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/05/education/05COLU.html?ex=1019023295&ei=1&en=4403095a5b4ceae8
An academic celebrity since the age of 31 when he "fixed" Bolivia's hyperinflation, and other latin American illnesses, Sachs served as a controversial adviser in Eastern Europe and Russia post-90. Now into Africa and Asia, he is doing a lot of work in India for not only the Vajpayee Government but also the state of Tamil Nadu. On a Nepal-related note, he visited our country in 1994, and at least five Nepalis are known to have benefited from his brilliant, informed, passionate, and dogmatic lectures on trade, evolution of capitalism, and history and theory of development in general at Harvard.
Wherever he is based, he will remain an ardent professional and personal advocate of poor country causes.
Enjoy New York, Jeff Sachs.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 05-Apr-02 11:53 PM
Bikas J,
If you are reading this, do you have that interview we took of Sachs when he
was in Nepal? If so, could you please post it here?
I think some of the stuff Sachs talked about Nepal then are still relevant to
be shared with a wider audience today. What do you think?
On another note, Paschim, I agree that Sachs departure is a great loss to Harvard. Then again, I always had this impression that the folks at the
Economics Department were not too impressed with Sachs's work, and Sachs himself was spending more and more time AWAY from the department, away
from Cambridge, visiting developing countries, and teaching more at the Kennedy School where he seemed more comfortable lecturing to the next generation of finance ministers and policy-makers and hanging out with the likes of U2's Bono and assorted celebrities THAN developing hard-core theories using fancy mathematics, the stuff, you know, that nurtures your academic (as opposed
to popular) reputation.
It was Sachs' interest and his globe-trotting experiences -- particularly his work
in Bolivia in the mid-1980s -- that ultimately led to his starting that MPA program in International Development, the program that many of the Economics Department faculty members were sort of not too keen/enthusiastic at the time and the program they sort of pushed it to the K-School down the road, though I don't know what they think of the program now.
Harvard's Economics Department is a wonderful place in many ways, but its rigid focus, at times, seems way too narrow, almost suffocating, to cater to students and professors whose intellectual interests necessarily GROW to be too diverse and varied. Then again, that's the story of any top economics department.
Contrary to popular belief, economics is such a lively, interesting subject -- but unfortunately, the way mainstream, top-notch American economics PhD programs are structured -- very rigid and very party-line -- there is NOT much room to
have intellectal fun in the program and you end up becoming sort of an intellectual kamaiya. It's great if you love that kind of approach, and not so great, if you don't.
But, hey, that's life.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| Bikas |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 12:09 AM
I don't have that interview with me... Maybe the "Spotlight" office has a copy? It surely did bring out his convictions clearly.
Sachs was indeed a great teacher. I took his (2nd year PhD level) class on international monetary theory my senior year (and also had him as my senior thesis advisor) and was blown away by his intellect. He is responsible, to a large degree, for the path I took after college. Too bad he is coming to Columbia as I am leaving. And I am sure he will not like where I am going after this (I sent him an email early last week, and I haven't heard back yet).
This move is certainly a great one for Sachs. He gets to direct the massive Earth Institute at Columbia, and work more intensively at the UN. [As one Boston Globe piece had him saying: "Even the president of Harvard can't move the UN to Cambridge."] The Institute spans many disciplines (among its holdings is the Biosphere 2 project in Arizona!), but is somewhat weak in the social sciences at the moment. I am sure he will be strengthening that area. He will get to address global development issues in a multi-disciplinary manner (as he has been tending to do in recent years). The econ department here doesn't really expect him to teach graduate level courses or advise dissertations, but hopefully, graduate students will now have better access to research topics and funding because of his connections to the Earth Institute and the UN. And hopefully, his name will attract other younger faculty members as well.
If you ask me, he is certainly a more welcome addition to the faculty than Stiglitz, a just-in-time Nobel not withstanding.
Paschim, if you are who I think you are, are you still in Washington? I will be joining the institution on the other side of 19th Street in October. [I am planning to move into an apartment in the city by September.] Let's get together then.
bikas
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| Paschim |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 02:35 AM
When Amartya Sen left Harvard in 1998 to become the Head of Trinity College in Cambridge, England, the Immigration Officer at Heathrow is said to have looked at his passport, brown face, and address in England as "The Master's Lodge, Trinity", and asked him, "So Mr. Sen, are you a friend of the Master at Trinity?" Sen, with devastating wit and without mentioning the loaded racial connotation, later told an audience, "The Immigration Officer's question made me wonder whether I was a friend of myself", and went on to deliver a two-hour lecture on "Identity". Anyway, just a memorable aside on another of Harvard's recent losses.
But, yes, Ashu, my source tells me that while Sachs for all practical purposes abandoned the economics department (except the Galen Stone Chair), and even moved his office to the Kennedy School to head the Center for Int. Dev., he did offer one course in the fall that was open jointly to K-School MPA/ID and graduate economics students. I hear, while the MPA/ID program was his creation that he chaired initially, his role was soon relegated to teaching just that one core course, with his weight then replaced by a team of 4 formidable neo-classical economists, intellectually opposed to Sachs himself: Dani Rodrik, Jeffrey Frankel, Ricardo Hausmann, and Andres Velasco. Stiglitz was enticed, but his new girlfriend wouldn't let him leave NY. Or, so his speech writer in DC for 2 years told me.
Bikas, congratulations! I think I am (a la Sen) who you think I think you think I am. Sorry. Yes, of course, I am who you think I am. I'm no longer based at that august location and that holy address you mention :) Paschim (my alias on this forum) has moved East, so to speak. I knew you would go where you are going now when I ran into that hottie Argentine lady friend of yours last year. Yes, she said she was married. Happily married, in fact :) Very glad to know that my speculation has been confirmed. Let's catch up. I'm at kautilya100@yahoo.com.
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| smp |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 08:21 AM
my belly shakes as i read this exchange! thanks for the entertaining quasi-cryptic thread not to mention the mention of an argentinian lady friend. and stiglitz who i suspect suffers from a mild form of add (the only time i have been in the same room as he, he could not sit still on his chair) will soon be elsewhere probably, notwithstanding the likely fate of his just-in-time nobel behind a la his younger (probably better looking) lady friend. that last statement is pure speculation on my part.
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| Harvard Student |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 10:43 AM
I believe that Sirjana KC, a graduate student at the Kennedy School of Government, spesializing in Pharmacoeconomics and Debendra Karki, a Research Scholar at Harvard School of Public Health were recruited from Nepal by Jeff. I wonder if they will will continue here at Harvard or follow him to Columbia! Good Luck to all three.
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| Bikas |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 11:16 AM
Smp, you know fully well what Argentine friend of mine we are talking about. I am surprised you hadn't met them (I thought you had, two summers ago). She (and her husband, a KSG PhD) are two of my closest friends from Columbia [and, yes, they are happily married; they make a wonderful couple], and it would be fun to hang out with them in DC again.
As for Stiglitz, I don't think he is moving anywhere anytime soon. He has his bully pulpit -- the Institute for Policy Dialogue -- here. And with the little teaching responsibilities he has, he gets to use the well-deserved Nobel (for his theoretical endeavors) to mint money by giving speeches to all and sundry about policy issues (which, from what I have seen, are rather one-sided and unfair to institutions/people he criticizes).
More on Sachs: I think his move to KSG had a lot to do with his desire to branch out into even more applied areas of economics. But there is the push element, too: the department more or less sided with Andrei Shleifer in his dispute against HIID. As many of you may recall, Shleifer was accused of using inside information he had as part of his advisory duties in Russia (as an HIID consultant) to make money for his wife's hedge fund. But since Shleifer is a good theorist, and Sachs a pop superstar who has stepped on many a genius' toes over the years, they kinda froze Sachs out. Perils of academia, I guess... So glad I am not stepping into that.
[btw, got an email from Sachs this morning -- he must have finally returned to Cambridge after being feted by Columbia and the UN -- and he does approve of my next move... phew!!]
Check out this Core course that Sachs was teaching at Harvard last semester: http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~sa60/ It looks really interesting; hopefully, he will do the same at Columbia; students (both at the College and at the School of International and Public Affairs) could benefit from his insights.
Paschim, where are you these days? [Looking for an answer more specific than "east'...] Maybe I will be able to introduce you to intelligent friends of mine (hopefully, unmarried) in your locale; even when I was merely lurking, reading your plaintive cries for companionship was heart-wrenching indeed. ; )
Bikas
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| arnico |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 12:18 PM
Hey guys,
Nice to see a familiar "faces". Bikas, it's been a long time since we have been in touch! Send me an e-mail some time, or let's get together next time you come to Boston or I go to NY.
I had a chat with Jeff at a sustainability conference two weeks ago, and he was already very strongly hinting at moving to NY, describing his role with the UN and asking for input on his millenium goals project from everyone... he did not mention anything about Columbia yet, though. By the way Bikas, he still remembered our coffee break conversation in KTM when you arranged for him to speak at the rashtra bank.
smp, I will soon send you an e-mail update about latest developments since our last e-mail exchange in late Fall/early winter... as soon as I have more time to sit down and write.
Paschim... so when will I find YOU on the beach in Phuket with your new lady friend? :)
Ashu... let's plan on meeting for coffee/momo etc. in late May.
take care.
Arnico.
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| Bikas |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 01:50 PM
Well ... in response to comments on another thread, here is a link for anyone interesting in learning more about Jeff Sachs:
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/ciddirector/
You will clearly see the breadth of his work and understand why he is undoubtedly one of the best policy economists in the world. While I think it should be perfectly fine for us to talk about a person or an idea without having to trot out its connection to Nepal at every turn, his work *is* quite relevant to a country like Nepal. Check out his paper on an international lender of last resort / sovereign bankruptcy court, an idea he put forth in 1995 and has only now been taken up by the IMF (and Paul O' Neill). Or his role in debt reduction for developing countries (the HIPC initiative and Jubilee 2000 both bear his mark). His recent work on health and macroeconomics also has immediate relevance to the developing world. Maybe Arnico could add more on sustainable development, esp. how the Earth Institute may come in handy.
Hopefully, the "Spotlight" piece will be found and posted here. I remember him delivering a blunt message to Nepali policy makers (both in that interview and at the speech at Nepal Rastra Bank): in order to have sustained economic growth, Nepal has to ride the coat-tails of Indian economic reforms. This is as true now as it was then.
Of course, there is his class as well, a link to which I gave earlier:
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~sa60/
His classnotes are in pdf and ppt formats, and can be downloaded by anyone interested in the issue of "Wealth and Poverty in the Global Economy."
[... not to mention his book with Larrain on "Macroeconomics in the Global Economy" which, even though it has not been updated, is without doubt one of the best textbooks on open economy macroeconomics. I have used parts of it in classes that I have taught here, too.]
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to email me. Having been his student in the past and an ardent follower of his work over the years, I could certainly help you (as could Paschim and other Nepalis who have managed to learn from him). That said, let me end my hagiography right here for now.
Arnico, Paschim, Ashu .... if you are going to be in Nepal in mid-June / early July, we should definitely try to meet and catch up! Email me. [I have been trying to convince smp to go at the same time, but he is being rather obstinate.]
Bikas
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| smp |
Posted
on 08-Apr-02 04:53 PM
bikas, yes i do know your argentine friend. all of us had dinner once, i think, at cafe asia. i was just amusing myself with paschim's mention of her and his confirmation of her being married.
paschim, i heard rumors about interesting hooking up plans for you in kathmandu a la some of your friends from london.
arnico, i look forward to your update. sorry i have slacked off in the meantime re our project. got started on other projects in the mean time as well.
all, i am not being obstinate as bikas mentions. finances make it more appropriate if i visit in september. so if any of you are going to be in kathmandu in september, it would be great to meet up and hang out. i hear jatra cafe is a nice place.
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