美
国首位诺贝尔经济学奖得主保罗•萨缪尔森(Paul A. Samuelson)周日去世，享年94岁。萨缪尔森的分析著作奠定了现代经济学的基础，他的教科书是大学流传最广的教材之一。用美联储主席贝南克(Ben Bernanke)的话讲，萨缪尔森是经济学界最伟大的教师之一，是经济学巨匠。
AFP/Getty Images
美国前总统克林顿帮助萨缪尔森（左）佩戴1996年国家科学奖章
萨缪尔森在20世纪著作甚丰，他的经济学职业延续了长达80年。1932年还在上高中时，他听了一堂芝加哥大学的经济学课程，并深受吸引。但他在今年初接受《华尔街日报》采访时说，当他在大萧条时期就读芝加哥大学时，他才真正意识到课堂上教授的内容与在街头巷尾的所见所闻之间的差异。
不顾芝加哥大学教授的反对，1935年萨缪尔森到哈佛大学就读研究生。1941年，他的博士论文论述了经济学下的数学结构，这就是后来出版的《经济分析基础》(Foundations of Economic Analysis)。这种做法在经济学领域具有革命性的意义，时至今日，经济学家仍常常借助数学手段证明他们的理论。
普林斯顿大学经济学家迪克西特(Avinash Dixit)说，对我来说，这是一个巨大的损失。我的整体研究风格，以及支持我的几乎全部论文的技术都来自于他的基础性文章。
萨缪尔森1940年开始在麻省理工学院授课，这是他与该大学终生联系在一起的开始，也让这所大学的经济学系成为了全球最受尊崇的学科。1948年，他编写的教科书《经济学》首次出版，多年来都是最为广泛使用的大学教科书，他的分析方法也成为了本科课程的标准。这本书还将凯恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)的著作引入到了大学的课程中。这本书现在已经是第19版，仍然深受欢迎。贝南克在其美联储办公室的书架上就放着一本萨缪尔森签名的《经济学》。
麻省理工学院经济学家、美国国家经济研究局主席波特伯(James Poterba)记得高中时就看过萨缪尔森的教科书。他说，每个大学生都从中学到了很多，我们都理所当然地认为萨缪尔森在编纂和发掘方面绝对发挥了关键作用。这就好比是想象人们在牛顿之前是如何处理力学问题的。
1970年，萨缪尔森在设立诺贝尔经济学家的第二年就获此殊荣，他也是美国的第一位诺贝尔经济学奖得主。诺贝尔奖委员会写道，与其他当代的经济学家不同，萨缪尔森的贡献推动了经济学总体分析和方法论水平的提高。实际上他是改写了相当一部分经济理论。
萨缪尔森一直是民主党人，他曾担任肯尼迪和约翰逊总统的顾问，但他拒绝在政府中担任官职。
萨缪尔森出身于一个著名经济学家家庭，包括弟弟罗伯特•萨默斯(Robert Summers)、弟媳阿妮塔•萨默斯(Anita Summers)和侄子劳伦斯•萨默斯(Lawrence Summers)。
担任奥巴马总统国家经济委员会主任的劳伦斯•萨默斯周日说，除此之外，萨缪尔森还是一名学者。他过去曾经骄傲地说，他从来没有在华盛顿度过一周以上。但是，通过他的研究、教学和写作，他对美国乃至全球的经济生活产生了比任何政府官员和许多总统更大的影响。
萨缪尔森今年3月在接受《华尔街日报》采访时谈到了努力平息金融危机的那些人。他说，当年的典型权威可能是25年前我在麻省理工学院时的学生。我对贝南克非常敬佩。但出生于1956年的他可能对金融危机没有多少感觉。他说，如果你是上世纪50年代以后出生的，你骨子里不会真正有大萧条的感觉。作为麻省理工学院的聪明学生也不能替代这点。
事实上，麻省理工大学的博士主导着这个专业，在政府中占据很多高级职位，包括贝南克和经济顾问委员会主席克里斯蒂娜•罗默(Christina Romer)。
Justin Lahart / Jon Hilsenrath
Paul A. Samuelson, whose analytical work laid the foundation for modern economics, died Sunday. He was 94.
Mr. Samuelson, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in economics and the author of one of the most-ubiquitous college textbooks ever, was 'one of the greatest teachers that economics has ever known' and 'a titan of economics,' according to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.
'Paul Samuelson was both a pathbreaking and prolific economic theorist,' said Mr. Bernanke, a former student of Mr. Samuelson's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Actively publishing into the 2000s, Mr. Samuelson's career in economics spanned eight decades. As a high school student in 1932, he wandered into an economics lecture at the University of Chicago and was enamored. But attending Chicago as an undergraduate during the Great Depression, he became acutely aware, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal earlier this year, of the differences between what was being taught in the classroom and 'what I heard out the windows and I heard from the street.'
In 1935 he went, despite his Chicago professors' protestations, to Harvard University for his graduate work. His 1941 PhD thesis, later published as 'Foundations of Economic Analysis,' examined the mathematical structure underlying economics. The approach revolutionized the field, to the point where economists today are often consumed with finding mathematical proofs for their theories.
'For me, it is a special bereavement,' said Princeton University economist Avinash Dixit. 'My whole style of research, and the techniques that support almost all of my own papers, derive from his foundational articles.'
Mr. Samuelson started teaching at MIT in 1940, the beginning of a lifelong association with the university that helped its economics program become the most highly-regarded in the world. Through his 'Economics' textbook, first published in 1948 and for years the most widely used college textbook on any topic, his analytical approach became the standard for undergraduate courses. It also introduced the work of John Maynard Keynes into the college curriculum. Now in its 19th edition, it is still popular. Mr. Bernanke keeps a copy signed by Mr. Samuelson on the shelves in his office at the Fed.
'There's just an enormous amount of what every undergraduate learns that we take for granted that Paul played an absolutely critical role in codifying and uncovering,' said MIT economist and National Bureau of Economic Research president James Poterba, who remembers carrying around Mr. Samuelson's textbook as a high school student. 'It's like trying to envision how did people do mechanics before Newton.'
In 1970, Mr. Samuelson was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in economics, the second year the prize was offered. 'Samuelson's contribution has been that, more than any other contemporary economist, he has contributed to raising the general analytical and methodological level in economic science,' wrote the Nobel prize committee. 'He has in fact simply rewritten considerable parts of economic theory.'
Mr. Samuelson, a lifelong Democrat, acted as an adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, though he refused to take an official position in government.
Mr. Samuelson hailed from a family of well-known economists, including brother Robert Summers, sister-in-law Anita Summers and nephew Lawrence Summers.
'Above all else, Paul Samuelson was a scholar,' Lawrence Summers, who runs President Obama's National Economic Council, said Sunday. 'He used to proudly remark that he had never spent a full week in Washington. But through his research, teaching, and writing he had more impact on the economic life of this country and the world than any government economic official and many presidents.'
Mr. Samuelson, in a March interview with The Wall Street Journal, took aim at those trying to quell the financial crisis. 'The typical pundit today would be somebody who might have been my student at MIT 25 years ago. I have great admiration for Ben Bernanke. But having been born in 1956 he did not have a feel for what it was like. If you were born after 1950, you really don't have the feel of that Great Depression in your bones,' he said. 'Being a bright boy at MIT, it's not really a substitute for that.'
Indeed, MIT PhDs now dominate the profession and hold many high positions in government, including Mr. Bernanke and Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Justin Lahart / Jon Hilsenrath
Mr. Samuelson, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in economics and the author of one of the most-ubiquitous college textbooks ever, was 'one of the greatest teachers that economics has ever known' and 'a titan of economics,' according to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.
'Paul Samuelson was both a pathbreaking and prolific economic theorist,' said Mr. Bernanke, a former student of Mr. Samuelson's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Actively publishing into the 2000s, Mr. Samuelson's career in economics spanned eight decades. As a high school student in 1932, he wandered into an economics lecture at the University of Chicago and was enamored. But attending Chicago as an undergraduate during the Great Depression, he became acutely aware, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal earlier this year, of the differences between what was being taught in the classroom and 'what I heard out the windows and I heard from the street.'
In 1935 he went, despite his Chicago professors' protestations, to Harvard University for his graduate work. His 1941 PhD thesis, later published as 'Foundations of Economic Analysis,' examined the mathematical structure underlying economics. The approach revolutionized the field, to the point where economists today are often consumed with finding mathematical proofs for their theories.
'For me, it is a special bereavement,' said Princeton University economist Avinash Dixit. 'My whole style of research, and the techniques that support almost all of my own papers, derive from his foundational articles.'
Mr. Samuelson started teaching at MIT in 1940, the beginning of a lifelong association with the university that helped its economics program become the most highly-regarded in the world. Through his 'Economics' textbook, first published in 1948 and for years the most widely used college textbook on any topic, his analytical approach became the standard for undergraduate courses. It also introduced the work of John Maynard Keynes into the college curriculum. Now in its 19th edition, it is still popular. Mr. Bernanke keeps a copy signed by Mr. Samuelson on the shelves in his office at the Fed.
'There's just an enormous amount of what every undergraduate learns that we take for granted that Paul played an absolutely critical role in codifying and uncovering,' said MIT economist and National Bureau of Economic Research president James Poterba, who remembers carrying around Mr. Samuelson's textbook as a high school student. 'It's like trying to envision how did people do mechanics before Newton.'
In 1970, Mr. Samuelson was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in economics, the second year the prize was offered. 'Samuelson's contribution has been that, more than any other contemporary economist, he has contributed to raising the general analytical and methodological level in economic science,' wrote the Nobel prize committee. 'He has in fact simply rewritten considerable parts of economic theory.'
Mr. Samuelson, a lifelong Democrat, acted as an adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, though he refused to take an official position in government.
Mr. Samuelson hailed from a family of well-known economists, including brother Robert Summers, sister-in-law Anita Summers and nephew Lawrence Summers.
'Above all else, Paul Samuelson was a scholar,' Lawrence Summers, who runs President Obama's National Economic Council, said Sunday. 'He used to proudly remark that he had never spent a full week in Washington. But through his research, teaching, and writing he had more impact on the economic life of this country and the world than any government economic official and many presidents.'
Mr. Samuelson, in a March interview with The Wall Street Journal, took aim at those trying to quell the financial crisis. 'The typical pundit today would be somebody who might have been my student at MIT 25 years ago. I have great admiration for Ben Bernanke. But having been born in 1956 he did not have a feel for what it was like. If you were born after 1950, you really don't have the feel of that Great Depression in your bones,' he said. 'Being a bright boy at MIT, it's not really a substitute for that.'
Indeed, MIT PhDs now dominate the profession and hold many high positions in government, including Mr. Bernanke and Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Justin Lahart / Jon Hilsenrath
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