Our favourite economists

I asked the department’s students who were their favourite economists. To no surprise, the internationalist Paul Krugman is the most popular, being the favourite of 5 students among the 28 who took the survey.

In second position come the Nobel Prize winning George Akerlof, who described the market for lemons, and Keynes, whose modern equivalent is now desperately awaited by the looming world economic crisis, with 2 votes each. Four students also chose among the great economists of all time, choosing Adam Smith, Ricardo, Schumpeter and F.A. von Hayek, hereby stating their support for free trade, creative destruction and free market capitalism.

Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman and Bob Solow both got a vote, and so did Central Banker Paul Volcker, who is now advising Obama. Rogoff, Blanchard and Eichengreen got one vote each, and so did the always too vague Dani Rodrik.

Two HEI economists also made the list: Richard Baldwin and Sebastian Weber, for his grahical intuition. Pompeu Fabra professors Jaume Ventura and Jordi Gali seem to be highly appreciated by macro students, and so is Daron Acemoglu, who came up with the settler mortality instrument. I chose Edward Miguel and his buddy world authority Ray Fisman also got a vote for being a nerd. Last but not least, Scott Taylor, who explained the economics of Easter Island, also made the list.

Basically, we like those to whom we get exposed to in class and generally, macro people like macro guys and micro people like micro guys. But above all, I would say we are quite heterogenous in our tastes.