MIT's three Nobel Prize-winning economists will make a rare public appearance together when they deliver the inaugural Ford/MIT Nobel Laureate Lecture at 7pm Monday, Sept. 18, in Kresge Auditorium.
Professors Emeriti Paul A. Samuelson, Franco Modigliani and Robert M. Solow, who among them have spent 151 years on campus, will talk on "The US Economy: The Last 50 Years and the Next 50 Years." A question-and-answer period will follow their lectures.
MIT Video Productions will videotape, cablecast and webcast the program. The webcast may be accessed via the MIT Home Page on the day of the program.
The speakers will be introduced by Chancellor Lawrence S. Bacow and Dr. Martin B. Zimmerman, vice president for governmental affairs for the Ford Motor Co. The five-year program supported by aFord Motor Co. grant will sponsor additional MIT appearances by Nobel laureates this academic year.
Professor Emeritus Samuelson joined the Department of Economics faculty in 1940. He won the Nobel Prize in 1970 for his work to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory, the first American to be so named for economics.
In 1948, Professor Samuelson authored the best-selling introductory textbook Economics, which has been translated into 40 languages and is still widely used. In addition, he has written Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947, enlarged edition 1983) and five volumes of The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson (1966-86). A sixth and seventh volume are planned.
Professor Modigliani came to the Sloan School of Management in 1960 as a visiting professor and was appointed to the faculty two years later. A native of Italy, he won the 1985 Nobel Prize in economics for his analysis of "life cycle savings."
The author of 18 books, Professor Modigliani is an honorary president of the International Economic Association and former president of both the Econometric Society, the American Economic Association and the American Finance Association. He was awarded the James R. Killian Faculty Achievement Award by MIT in 1985.
Professor Solow, who taught undergraduate courses in macroeconomics and other subjects for 47 years, joined the faculty in 1949. He received the Nobel Prize in economics in 1987 for his theory of growth.
Professor Solow has written numerous books, including Capital Theory and the Rate of Return (1963), Growth Theory: An Exposition (1970) and The Labor Market as a Social Institution (1990). He has collaborated on books with MIT professors Samuelson, Michael L. Dertouzos and Richard K. Lester.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 13, 2000.
