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Did you drive a Ford Mustang or covet one when you were young? If it hadn't been for Minnesota alum Robert Eggert you might have been driving a Turino instead. If you have ever checked your own forecasts against the consensus of others as measured by the Blue Chip Economic Indicators, you again have Minnesota alum Robert Eggert to thank.
Robert Eggert grew up in Illinois and came to Minnesota in 1936 after completing his undergraduate work at the University of Illinois. He met and married Betty Bauer while working on his M.S. degree at Illinois. At Minnesota Eggert worked with George Garver from whom he "gained a great deal." Before he could complete his thesis work, a job as assistant professor lured Eggert to Kansas State University. He left Kansas when a job offer from the American Meat Institute doubled his salary. Eleven years later a job offer from Ford moved Eggert from "steers to gears."
At Ford Eggert worked in both marketing and economic research. He worked on the early development of the Thunderbird and the Falcon. Other work led Ford engineers to accelerate their introduction of automatic transmissions. It was Eggert who suggested the name Mustang for the sporty car Ford developed in the mid sixties. The name came from a book of the same title his wife had given him for Christmas 1960. Lee Iacocca, the developer of the car, favored the name Turino. Eggert says, "We tested about 17 different names, and Turino wasn't on the bottom, but it was awful close to the bottom." He now has a collection of vintage Mustangs.
From Ford, Eggert moved to Michigan State where he helped establish a program in Agribusiness, one of the first at land-grant colleges. In less than a year the private sector, this time RCA, again lured him away from academe with a vice presidential title. In 1976 Eggert left RCA, moving from Connecticut to Sedona, Arizona, because of his wife's health. At Ford and RCA, Eggert had been involved in both marketing and economic research. RCA kept the marketing research in-house but used outsiders, including Eggert, for their economic research. When he moved to Sedona he established Eggert Economic Enterprises and became editor of Blue Chip Economic Indicators.
Blue Chip Economic Indicators is a recognized standard against which to measure individual forecasts. The consensus forecast has a strong track record for accuracy of its own. His subscribers include the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as well as the White House. The idea of consensus forecasts as a benchmark began when Eggert worked with Robert McNamara at Ford. He further developed the idea while working for RCA where he consulted a panel of 25 economists. Now Eggert contacts over 50 forecasters each month and polls them on their forecasts for the growth of GDP, inflation, unemployment and a dozen other macro-economic measures.
Now in his early eighties, Eggert continues an active work schedule. Besides his national forecasts, Eggert assisted in the founding of the Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University which publishes metropolitan, state and regional forecasts. His calendar is full with speeches, board meetings, testimony and consulting commitments. While much of his life's work has focused on short-time forecasts, Eggert is optimistic about the true long run. He sees the emergence of free market forces and global markets as important forces for optimism. While concerned about excessive growth of world population, Eggert is optimistic that a technological breakthrough will make alternative sources of energy competitive. "Low energy costs, combined with a persistent work ethic, pollution control and greater free enterprise will make tomorrow's world a better place."
Remembrances by Clifford Hildreth
I have the impression that I was born tired and have been fully rested. As far as I know the only other notable feature of my birth was the size of my ears. My older sister tells me that as I approached age one my wingspread made her uncertain whether I would walk or fly.
It is easy to understand why Cliff might have felt tired when one reads about his 1933 summer job in Kansas:
When school ended the third week in May, I went directly to a crew laying a gas pipeline from McPherson to Concordia, about eighty miles north. The work was hard but paid 50 cents per hour, my highest wage to date. We worked a 44 hour week with occasional overtime. The general manual labor rate that summer was 40 cents per hour. Several of my friends were working seven hours per day in gasoline service stations or in retail stores for $30 per month.
Our friendly foreman assigned one of the harder jobs to me and a college student. We were on the painting crew. After a civil engineer and his assistant had marked the path ahead with colored cord, a ditching crew with a mechanical digger dug a trench about thirty inches deep and twelve inches wide. A welding crew welded 15 foot sections of six inch pipe together and suspended the resulting tube on wooden blocks about a foot above the trench.
The other painter and I were given a three-layer strip of burlap about seven feet long with handles affixed to each end. This was looped around the tube in slanting fashion so the handles were about five feet apart. When one handle was pulled upward the burlap spun around the tube spreading paint that was poured on the pipe by another painting crew member. He placed it about eight inches ahead of the constantly moving loop. We painters pulled our handles up alternately. Pulling one handle up lowered the other to the level of the pipe. The front painter pulled up and a little forward, the back painter pulled almost straight up; this keep the loop moving forward. Each upward pull was about like lifting a 40 pound weight two or three feet. A cycle (upward pull by each painter) took about ten seconds and moved the loop about two feet forward. Two other members of the painting crew removed the wooden block ahead of us as we approached it and then placed it under the painted pipe immediately behind. There were brief rest periods about a half hour apart. A new burlap strip was furnished at each rest period.
The paint was hot melted tar with added ingredients, creosote being prominent. Learning to ignore the odor took several days and splashes on skin or clothing produced blisters. The contractor intended that the crews should lay at least one mile of pipe each day and this was typically achieved or slightly exceeded.
Rosa Matzkin ('86) and former faculty member Ken Wolpin were elected Fellows of the Econometric Society in December 1995. Rosa is at Northwestern and Ken is now at Penn.
Tom Sargent received the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics from Northwestern University this spring. The prize is awarded every other year to individuals with careers of "outstanding achievement, as demonstrated by major contributions to new knowledge or the development of significant new modes of analysis. " The prize carries a $100,000 stipend. Consistent with the terms of the bequest, past recipients of the Nobel Prize and current or former full-time members of the Northwestern faculty are ineligible for the Prize.
Josef Hadar ('62) has retired from Southern Methodist University, and is moving to Israel.
Ramu Ramanathan's ('67) site on the web can be found at: http://weber.ucsd.edu/~rramanat/ and his e-mail address is rramanathan@ucsd.edu
Art Rolnick ('73) and his wife Cheri were featured on the cover of Northwest Racquet Swim & Health. The Rolnicks have been active participants in the Northwest ballroom dance program for the past five years and competed locally this winter. Of dancing Art says "It's like going to proms all the time. You get all dressed up. It tends to look romantic and it can be, but it's really a sport. I used to like the wing and Latin dances but as I've learned more about the smooth dances (waltz, fox trot, quick step and tango), I like those dances better. I don't think American men are generally very good at Latin dances. It requires amazing control of your body. You have to be able to isolate different parts of your body and control the movements. It's very hard. With the smooth dances you don't have to do as much of that."
Fred Johnson ('80), working at General Motors Europe has been overseas since 1991, first in Zurich and now in Russelsheim, Germany. His past assignments included forecasting car sales, being chief economist, and doing planning. He is now director of product cost reduction, which puts him in the middle of technical, purchasing, marketing, manufacturing and finance activities. Fred notes, "In case there was any doubt that our industry was competitive, I can assure you it is, and I find myself on the sharp edge!"
Fred continues, "I still have time to think about arcane topics such as economics. In fact, I was discussing 'customer value' today with a couple of engineers in my group (half in English, half in German) and actually drew a supply and demand curve ('angebot und nachfrage,' as we say it here). If there's any moral to this, it's that there's life after economics, but the economics still comes back to haunt you!"
Alfonso Martinez ('81) wrote from Argentina about the last newsletter and added a story of his own:
Since I don't have anything close to Tapen's performance, I will just tell you my little story: I usually go to a rowing club about 20 km from Buenos Aires, in the city of Tigre. A couple of months ago when I walked into the club, I looked at a guy whose face was familiar, but I said to myself: this isn't true, it is ridiculous, I looked away so that this person wouldn't wonder why I was staring at him. To make the story short, it was George McCandless ('81) who was also staring at me![George moved to Argentina last year] Isn't it a small world? Needless to say how happy we were to meet each other. By the way, do you know if there is any TV program willing to pay $6000 for this?
A short update: I married Marita in 1985. We have four kids: Alfonso (9), Ana Maria (8), Estefania (6) and Aranzazu (2). I teach at the Argentine Catholic University and at the Center of Macroeconomic Studies of Argentina. Besides that I do economic consulting. Once in a while I sleep too!
The Stutzer Bearcats Intramural Softball team is STILL at it! This year the team was in the "A" Division, playing "prime players." Members of the team include: Mike Stutzer ('81), Ed Fagerlund ('79), Jeff Bailey (MA '78), Bob Dildine (MA '86), John Yunker (MA '75), and as honorary "owner" of the team, Garson Sher (MA '72). The team ended the season 2-2, reports long-term player-manager, Mike Stutzer.
Soumyen Sikdar ('84) has moved to the Department of Economics at Calcutta University from Burdwan University.
Tatsuyoshi Saijo ('85) has moved from Tsukuba University to the Institute of Socio-Economic Planning at Osaka University. He can be reached at: saijo@iser.osaka-u.ac.jp.
Eudald Canadell (MA '88) wrote to us in November of '95. "As of January 1st, 1995 I left the position I had for five years as Director of Economic Analysis and International Relations at the Spanish Securities Commission, to take up a job as Secretary General of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), in Montreal, Canada; a position to which I was elected by its General Assembly in October 1994 in Tokyo. IOSCO is a non-profit international organization that regroups the National Securities Commissions of the majority of the countries with market economies (or with established securities markets) of the world. So far we have members in 74 countries, representing nearly 95% of the world market capitalization. IOSCO was created in 1983... and works closely with other international organizations.... There is an enormous amount of literature on our work that I could make available to those interested in these issues and I would be happy to provide it, as well as any additional information on this and related areas and organizations." Eudald can be reached at OICV/IOSCO, C.P. 171 Tour de la Bourse, 800 Square Victoria, 42nd Floor, Montreal, Quebec, CANADA H4Z 1C8 or e-mail: eudald@oicv.iosco.org.
Valentin Carril (MA'88) writes from Chile that he is working at the Santander Merchant Chile (a bank) as Chief Research Economist. He is in charge of banking system analysis, and was involved in a recent merger. Valentin has also been an economic advisor to the President of the Central Bank of El Salvador for the past 3 years.
Emmanuel Skoufias ('88) was recently promoted to Associate Professor at the Economics Institute in Boulder Colorado. Emmanuel gave a seminar at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in March and reports that the place has been taken over by Minnesota grads!
Maria Muniagurria ('89) is profiled, complete with picture, in in the latest principles texts, Microeconomics and Macroeconomics, by Timothy Tregarthen.
Victor Rios-Rull ('90) and his wife Anita are the proud parents of a baby boy, Diego, born May 27, 1996. Diego weighed in at 3.2 kilos.
Xiaoguang Ni ('91) writes from Missouri that he has two boys: Daniel, 5, and Alan, 3.
Insill Yi ('91) writes from Korea that last December a number of Minnesota grads got together when Chris Sims was in Seoul.
Shomu Banerjee ('92) has a site on the web where you can see his "mugshot" with a write-up: http://prcweb.gsu.edu/people/
associates/shomu.html and his new e-mail address is shomu@gsu.edu
Ted Herzog (MA '95), now at Stanford Law School, will be working at a St. Paul law firm this summer: Winthrop and Weinstine. At Stanford Ted also has an editing position with the Stanford Journal of International Law.
Francois Ortalo-Magne ('95) e-mailed us from the London School of Economics about his experience as economics commentator on Mad Cows.
As soon as it started getting in the front pages, I recorded an interview for CNN evening business news and gave another one to the Herald Tribune. After that, journalists called every day for a period of 3 weeks. The reason is not really that I was an expert; I knew nothing about the problem until my first request for interview. It is just that when journalists would call the LSE press office, I was the only faculty registered as having some knowledge about agricultural economics issues.
I quickly found some good contacts in the agricultural world around here, spent my days reading news reports and started to respond to every interview request. In all I gave about 20 ranging from BBC World Service to Singapore TV, Wall Street Journal, Canadian papers and TV etc.... Never refuse an interview from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, they pay quite well for it, most of the others don't. Recording one for the main French evening news was great for all the family members back home who had not seen me in a while. The most enjoyable was to be invited by CNN International to comment live in the evening news on the agricultural secretary's first main response to the crisis in Parliament.
The experience was interesting in itself in that I learned a bit how to deal with journalists, how some of them are so good at making you say what they want, whereas others try their best to report accurately the message you are trying to convey. The challenge is now to see if I can get a paper out of this quickly acquired expertise!
As a postscript to the last newsletter's story, Tapen Sinha ('86) wrote: "I appeared on the show AGAIN - this time, with my brother - a double dose of drinking water through the nose! This is the first time in the history of personkind this act was performed on TV by two brothers with PhDs in Economics!! The host announced, 'You have heard of the Marx Brothers, now comes the Sinha Brothers...' They changed the format of the show. Now they have two celebrities doing the judging. One was pregnant and the other one had a baby. So, when a little kid appeared (it really didn't matter what he did!) they just went 'awwwwww, ain't that cute.' Needless to say, that sealed our fate! We did not win anything (just $250 for appearing, plus they flew me to Sydney)."
Antonio Camacho, '65
Division of Labor, Variability, Coordination, and the Theory of Firms and Markets. (Kluwer, 1995)
Antonio is at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Vernon Ruttan has been appointed to chair a committee to advise the President of the University of Minnesota on long-term international strategy for the "U".
Timothy Kehoe was named to the first cohort of Distinguished McKnight University Professors. These awards were competitive across the whole University. They provide $20,000 a year of research support for each of five years and were designed to recognize outstanding young full professors.
Ed and Jan Prescott are grandparents. Their son Ned, an economist at the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, and his wife were proud parents of a boy, Edward, last fall.
You Betcha ! A Heckuva Deal !
Ed Coen's sons, the infamous "Coen Brothers," (Joel and Ethan) recently released their latest movie, Fargo. The film really pokes fun at us Minnesodans, and is hilarious. Now you know where they got their sense of humor!
The department's homepage is now fully functional, which means it is in a continuous state of evolution. Items that might be of particular interest include electronic versions of our graduate program brochure and undergraduate handbook, a posting of job market candidate CVs, and electronic access to recent newsletters, the alumni directory and the Economics Research Library. The ERC Library posting includes a listing of discussion papers that the Library has received over the past 4 and one half years. Under Netscape, once a file has been downloaded you can use the 'Find' option under 'Edit' to search the file. The electronic version of the Alumni Directory includes hot links to personal homepages. If yours is not included please let Wendy or Craig know and we will add the link. If you would like a paper copy of the latest directory, please contact Wendy.
Wendy Williamson
The library's web pages have been up since January and are a convenient way to access the monthly list of new papers and books. A new feature is the journal collection list. Use this to check to see if we own a particular title or year.
So far I haven't been able to get to the "Spring Roundup," so you alumni who STILL HAVE ITEMS CHECKED OUT please return them!!! The record offender (you know who you are) has had books out for 22 years....is he REALLY expecting to finish that thesis?? A fine of 25 cents per day for 22 years would be enough to support our current book budget for one year (computed without interest). I think it's time to collect!
The latest Center for Economic Research Discussion papers:
285) Ricardo de O. Cavalcanti. Capital-gains taxation in applied general equilibrium. December 1995. 46p.
286) Luis Carranza. Credit imperfections, inequality and economic growth. December 1995. 48p.
287) Byeongju Jeong. How important is uncertainty in accounting for differences in investment and output across countries? January 1996. 57p.
288) Steven Gjerstad. Multiple equilibria in exchange economies with homothetic, nearly identical preferences. March 1996. 26p.
Write to me (wendy@atlas.socsci.umn.edu) for copies as well as any news you want to include in the next newsletter. I also keep track of the alumni addresses, so if you have corrections or additions please let me know. Have a good summer!
Wendy Williamson
Economics Research Library
525 Science Classroom Bldg.
University of Minnesota
222 Pleasant Street, SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
USA
Phone: 612-625-2307
Fax: 612-624-0209
E-mail: wendy@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Web: http://www.econ.umn.edu/~econlib
Let us hear from you. We can be reached at any of the following:
Mail: Department of Economics University of Minnesota 1035 Management and Economics 271 19th Ave S Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 Phone: (612) 625 - 6353 Fax: (612) 624 - 0209 E-mail: Econdept@atlas.socsci.umn.edu Econdgs@atlas.socsci.umn.edu Homepage: http://www.econ.umn.edu