RIP Robert Lucas. A wonderful teacher, the deepest of thinkers and un unbelievably clear, insightful writer.
He was always obsessed by ideas, always going deeper. An anecdote from my graduate school years tells a lot about his obsessive drive to learn and to understand.
🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/lugaricano/status/1658155486053642259
It was the 3rd year of our PhD. After two gruelling years (the Core, with less than 50% pass rate on Year 1, the Prelims, with another 50% of students gone in Year 2) we were having our first reception as "real" grad students outside in the Social Science Quadrangle of @UChicago.
🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/lugaricano/status/1658155488809299986
Lucas approach me, asked me how I was doing.
I said after two brutal years, I was very happy. I was enjoying thinking about ideas, about which problem I would tackle for my dissertation, reading a lot and learning a lot, trying to figure out the next step.
🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/lugaricano/status/1658155492496093185
That was his intensity. He was always learning, always trying to figure out the next problem. And few people did as much to advance economics.
🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/lugaricano/status/1658155496937750528
My paper with @johnvanreenen and Claire Lelarge in the AER, and a lot of my research with Esteban Rossi-Hansberg on the knowledge economy, owes a debt to this pathbraking paper
My intellectual debt with Bob Lucas is huge.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3003596
🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/lugaricano/status/1658155498808520726
He was very disappointed, almost upset, by my answer:
"Ideas are hard. What you do not understand takes over your life. You puzzle over it, you cannot sleep until you solve it. This is not a game you enjoy. This is a challenge that obsesses you." He said.
🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/lugaricano/status/1658155494995898391