The following skit by Robert Solow has been transcribed from his original handwritten text in the Economists Papers Archive at Duke University and shared with Economics in the Rear-View Mirror by Roger Backhouse.
It is identified in its upper-right hand corner on the first page as “Solow’s Last Skit”. The manuscript bears no date, but there are two clues that point to its having been written sometime in the late 1980’s.
- The short-lived currency unit of Argentina, the Austral [b. June 15, 1985; d. December 31, 1991], is mentioned at the end of the skit.
- The late 1980s also marked the heyday of the petite radio and television therapist, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who spoke with a charming German accent about issues surrounding sexual health. One supposes nothing could have been more or less natural than imagining Rudiger Dornbusch, born in Krefeld, Germany, to be the Dr. Rudi dispensing professional advice to fellow economists.
Robert Solow has received much ribbing for the following remark from his 1966 “Comments.” Guidelines: Informal Controls and the Market Place, eds. George P. Shultz and Robert Z. Aliber. Chicago: University of Chicago, pp. 62-66.
“…everything reminds Milton [Friedman] of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I try to keep it out of my papers”.
Now read the text below and you will see that Robert Solow was definitely no prude when it came to joking about economists (still clearly “A Man’s World”):
- “Ed Presspott”: time inconsistency as analogue to hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD);
- “Dr. Rudi”: not consistently overshooting (I apologize if you cannot unread this);
- “Bob Barrell”: completely predictable routine, needing to spice up his act;
- “Tom Corporal”: obsessed with finding the right technique;
- “Larry Winters” as a compulsively promiscuous co-author.
From a comment left (15 Feb 2022) at Tyler Cowen’s Assorted Links (includes this post).
“I attended that skit party! Stan Fischer played Bob Barrel, and Jeff Wooldridge played Tom Corporal.”
_______________________
Solow’s Last Skit
Doctor Rudi Tells You How
(A) We present, in person, the world-famous author of the best-selling book “How to Repudiate Your Debts and Blame the Lender.” Dr. Rudi has been telling people how to run their—NO, NOT WHAT YOU EXPECTED—how to run their professional lives ever since he discovered that they would pay to listen. For a happy, uninhibited professional life, for fun-filled trips to Rio, for the pleasure of striking terror into the hearts of international bankers and making them pay, just listen to Dr. Rudi. Remember that Dr. Rudi swings like a pendulum do. Now for our first seeker after help with his professional life. Please state your name.
(P) [Edward C. Prescott] I’m Ed Presspott.
(R) And what is your problem, Mr. Presspott. Don’t be shy. Dr. Rudi has heard everything. Nothing shocks him.
(P) I feel so ashamed. I can barely bring myself to look in the mirror.
(R) Ah, you look in the mirror. The mirror is in the ceiling, no doubt?
(P) No, my regular shaving mirror, in the medicine cabinet.
(R) In the medicine cabinet? That’s a brand new one. Even Dr. Rudi has never heard of that before. There is no end to perversion. How does he get that mirror off his ceiling and into the medicine cabinet? Must ask [Stanley Fischer] Dr. Stan. Well, then, Mr. Presspott, why are you ashamed to look into the mirror—chuckle, chuckle,–that you keep in the medicine cabinet?
(P) I’m dynamically inconsistent. I didn’t think I could bring myself to say it. You’re wonderful, Dr. Rudi. Yes, let’s face it, I’m dynamically inconsistent.
(R) All the time?
(P) Yes. No. Yes. No. A lot, anyway. It just comes over me.
(R) You better tell me about it. Everything. Hold nothing back.
(P) Take last week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday were just routine. Of course my tastes and technology changed a couple of times, the way they always do. I adjusted, the way I always do. Kept the old markets cleared, the old prices flexible. Told everyone I was going to the movies on Thursday. Seemed like the best thing to do. Really did. Often go to the movies on Thursday. I really do. I really do. I really do. No, I don’t. I’ve got to tell someone, Dr. Rudi. I don’t go to the movies on Thursday. I don’t really go to the movies. Hardly ever. Somehow on Thursday I don’t feel like going to the movies. On Monday it seemed like the best thing to do. So I told everyone I would. But most Thursdays, I don’t know, it just comes over me that going to the movies might not be the best thing to do after all. Sometimes I make myself go, but most of the time I don’t. I know it’s wrong, but I don’t go. I’ve never told this to anyone before, Dr. Rudi, not even to [Finn Kydland] Kid Finland.
(R) So when you don’t go to the movies on Thursday, what do you do? I have to know if I’m going to help you.
(P) I just sit there in a sweat, even though it’s Minneapolis at 200° below zero. I just sit there in a sweat and worry about what the other people are thinking.
(R) Maybe they don’t know.
(P) Of course they know. It’s common knowledge. I can practically hear them whispering that old Presspot has lost his dynamic consistency. And they laugh, they laugh. I even tried telling them on Monday that I wouldn’t go to the movies on Thursday. But you know how it is, on Monday morning, with all that market clearing ahead of me, I really feel like going to the movies on Thursday. How do I know what I’ll feel like on Thursday? Help me, Dr. Rudi, help me.
(R) You just have to stop feeling guilty, Pressport. Lost of people are dynamically inconsistent. Even Dr. Rudi. Do you think I overshoot every time? Of course not. Sometimes I just can’t be bothered to overshoot. Dynamic consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds as dear Ralph Waldo Mundell used to say. No guilt, Presspott. No guilt. If it feels good, it feels good. Render unto Thursday what is Thursdays, as Jesus Mundell used to say. No guilt.
(P) Thank you, Dr. Rudi, thank you. I feel better already.
(R) And one more thing, Presspott.
(P) Yes, Dr. Rudi?
(R) Get that mirror out of the medicine cabinet and back on the ceiling where it belongs. Next client, please.
(A) You, sir, you look troubled. What is your name?
(B) [Robert Barro] Barrel, Bob Barrel, and I am sorely troubled.
(A) Tell it to Dr. Rudi, Barrel. You’re as good as cured.
(R) Let it hang out, Barrel. Well, maybe it would be better if you just told me about your problem.
(B) It’s simple. Dr. Rudi. Everything I do is anticipated. I am so predictable that everything I do is anticipated by everyone. Well, you know what happens.
(R) What happens?
(B) Nothing. That’s the problem of course. Nothing real happens. I’m death[?] on the price level, of course, but there’s no fun in that. Anyone can screw up the price level. I want to do something real.
(R) Sneak up on them. Barrel. Surprise them.
(B) I’ve tried. I wait until the last minute and then I try something completely out of character. Sometimes I smile, or make a joke. But nothing real happens. Nominal, nominal, nominal. So then I ask people on the street: how come nothing real happened? Didn’t I do something surprising? And they all say the same thing: We figured you would try to do something unanticipated, so we were waiting. You’re lucky you even have a nominal effect, Barrel. You’re predictable, Barrel, predictable. Before I can even say I resent that, they say you resent that. It’s obscene.
(R) No, it’s not obscene, Barrel. Nothing is obscene. Everything is OK. It’s OK to be predictable. It’s OK to be boring. It’s OK to be sober. Sometimes even the great Mundell is…boring. Maybe your grandchildren will be unpredictable.
(B, R together) B: I’ve already taken them fully into account.
R: You’ve already taken them fully into account.
(B) See what I mean. Am I doomed to leave no real effects behind me?
(R) Yes (Thank God). You must learn not to care. Think nominal. Nominal is beautiful. Real is ugly. Real is Keynesian.
(B, R together) There are no Keynesians.
(R) Stick with the price level, my boy, and the price level will stick with you. And one more thing—
(B) Yes, Dr. Rudi?
(R) No more boring predictable papers, please. Next sufferer.
(A) Here is a lost-looking soul. What is your name, sir, and are you seeking advice from Dr. Rudi?
(C) [Thomas Sargent] Corporal is my name, Tom Corporal. Science is my game. But yes, I have a bit of a problem. I’m sure there’s a theorem somewhere that will take care of it. If worst comes to worst we can always change the problem.
(R) Tell Dr. Rudi about it.
(C) Well, I might as well. I told you that science is my game. Control theory. Stochastic processes. See a sum of squares, minimize it.
(R) Small is beautiful as good old Kurt[?] Mundell used to say.
(C) Never heard of him, but if he was a minimizer he was OK.
(R) So what is the problem?
(C) Learn a new technique every month.
(R) Every month! What do you need me for?
(C) It’s my life. I perfect my technique. I am obsessed with doing it right, exactly right. I bring all my technique to bear on it, and I find I can’t do it at all.
(R) Well, this sounds more like my kind of problem. Not at all, eh?
(C) Oh I turn out the papers and the books all right. But nobody believes any of it. Neither do I. I try to work up some conviction.
(R) Conviction is better than guilt, as old Judge Mundell used to say. You gotta have conviction.
(C) Sometimes I can’t even work up a simple declarative sentence. But at least I’m doing it right.
(R) I thought you weren’t doing it at all.
(C) Maybe it’s the same thing. Anyway, I have another math book at home and I bet the key to the universe is in it somewhere. If I could only find a well-posed question I’m sure I could find a well-posed answer.
(R) My boy, listen to Dr. Rudi. One or two techniques is all you need. The great Mundell got by with no technique at all. Solow with even less.
(C) You mean it’s done with mirrors?
(R) On the ceiling, yes.
(C) Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection, eh.
(R) Any angle you like, Tom baby. Forget the technique and start to believe. That will get their attention. And then…
(C) And what then, Dr. Rudi?
(R) Tell them to repudiate their debts and blame the lenders.
(C) I believe, Dr. Rudi, I believe.
(R) But stay out of Brazil and Argentina, that’s my territory.
(C) It’s the Austro-Hungarian Empire for me. Wait till I tell [Neil Wallace] Neil.
(R) Next sinner, please.
(A) Here is a distinguished looking gentleman. Dr. Rudi rarely sees patients who seem so self-possessed yet so youthful. Sir, it is hard to believe that you have any problem at all, let alone the sort of thing that Dr. Rudi could help you with. What is your name, Sir?
(W) [Larry Summers] Larry Winters, but don’t ask me to spell it. Spelling is not my thing.
(A) Ah you don’t have to spell it. Everyone knows Larry Winters. But surely you don’t have any problems. When could you squeeze them in?
(W) Well, I’d rather talk to Dr. Rudi.
(R) Come in, tell me in complete confidence what brings you here. No one will know but our world-wide audience.
(W) Dr. Rudi, to tell you the truth I can’t stop writing. Every day I write like one possessed. Since January 1 I have written 89 articles and that doesn’t count National Bureau Working Papers. I don’t even have time to think.
(R) Ah, so you have discovered the Fundamental Secret?
(W) You mean that you don’t have to think in order to write?
(R) So wise, so young!
(W) I learned it from my teachers.
(R) Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
(W) Those who can’t teach, teach economics.
(R) You know that too?
(W) I learned it from my teachers.
(R) So you can’t stop writing. Compulsive promiscuity. As the late Dr. Sigmund Mundell said, the sins of the children are visited upon the fathers. Perhaps it was not Mundell. Perhaps it is not even true. Have you tried to understand this compulsion? The famous Bishop Mundell used to say that when he felt the impulse to write he would lie down until it went away.
(W) When I lie down I just keep writing.
(R) We must locate the source of this compulsion. Think.
(W) No time.
(R) What do your friends say about this? Sometimes they have insights denied to oneself.
(W) Some of them think I’m trying to catch up with [Martin Feldstein] Feldstein. Some of them think I’m trying to stay ahead of [N. Gregory Mankiw] Mankiw.
(R) You see—those are both difficult but sound objectives. I myself try mostly to emulate the great Gustave Mundell who always wrote one chapter before and another chapter after.
(W) Before and after what?
(R) What a pleasant surprise for you when you find out.
(W) Must go. I have three NBER Working Papers to finish today.
(R) But if we talked some more, I might find a way to cure you of this obsession.
(W) Cure? I don’t want to be cured. I like writing.
(R) But then why did you come to see Dr. Rudi?
(W) I thought we might get a joint paper out of it.
(A) And so we come to the end of another session with Dr. Rudi. If you have a question you would like to put to Dr. Rudi, write it down and send it to this station together with 5 billion Austral [Argentinian currency unit between June 15, 1985 and December 31, 1991], or better yet a box top, any box top. Thank you for your support.
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Robert M. Solow. Box 83.
Image Sources: Robert Solow from the Library of Economics and Liberty; Rudiger Dornbusch from FAZ, April 12, 2014; Dr. Ruth Westheimer from the Encyclopedia of Jewish Women.