Robert Solow: Nobel laureate and an exemplary human being

livemint.com:

The recent passing of legendary MIT economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow at the age of 99 has triggered a wave of tributes honouring his pioneering research, which deepened our understanding of the relationship between investment, technology and economic growth. His monumental contributions to the field are widely acknowledged, but for me his passing creates a profound and unexpected sense of personal loss.

During the 2001-02 academic year, I was a visiting professor at MIT, where I taught microeconomics and was expected to give a few other lectures. Olivier Blanchard, then-chair of the economics department, explained that due to limited space, I would have to share a cluster of three offices, the other occupants being Solow and Paul Samuelson.

Although the thought of being in a cluster with two Nobel laureates was somewhat discomfiting, my trepidation was unwarranted; my neighbours turned out to be lovely people. I got to know both Samuelson (who died in 2009), and Solow well during that academic year.

By then, Solow had established himself as a towering figure in the discipline of economics, renowned for his extensive contributions to the field, particularly his ground-breaking research on the drivers of economic growth. Over his illustrious career, he received every major economics award, culminating in the Nobel in 1987.

Solow’s work has had a profound impact on global policymaking, especially on East Asia’s so-called ‘tiger’ economies during their take-off. As the Nobel Committee noted, Solow’s growth model, which he developed in the 1950s, illustrated how “continuous technological progress" could increase economic output, encouraging governments around the world to invest in research and development (R&D).