RIP Bill Nordhaus

Oh, my. Bill Nordhaus has died. He was a great economist, an inspiring teacher, a wonderful academic citizen — and my first mentor. As an undergrad I took a seminar taught by Bill and Tjalling Koopmans on the economics of exhaustible resources. Bill liked my term paper well enough to hire me as a research assistant on his classic 1973 paper “The Allocation of Energy Resources.” Here’s the front page of that paper; see the note at the bottom;

Bill taught me how to be an economist, how to puzzle out a complex real issue and try to frame a model to make sense of that issue. He also showed me that economics can and should be a mission as well as a job. I’ll write more about his contribution and what it was like to work with him soon, probably after the midterms, when I have time to do it right.