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Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950

Book by Bruce Caldwell · 2 quotes · Hayek, Keynes, Mathematics

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Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950 Quotes

“The Marshall Society talk was doubtless interesting, but probably not altogether pleasant for Hayek. Some forty-odd years later, Joan Robinson in her Ely Lecture talked about how Hayek had “covered the blackboard with his triangles” and about the “pitiful state of confusion” within economics that his talk, in retrospect, represented. In her recounting, Kahn had “asked in a puzzled tone, ‘Is it your view that if I went out tomorrow and bought a new overcoat, that would increase unemployment?’ ‘Yes,’ said Hayek. ‘But,’ pointing to his triangles on the board, ‘it would take a very long mathematical argument to explain why’” (Robinson 1978a [1972], 2–3). In his own reminiscence, Kahn (1984) observed: “It is only fair to Hayek to mention that he had to condense four lectures into one, and that they were written when he had a high temperature” (182).”

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“On the more technical kind of economics my advance was impeded by my inadequate knowledge of mathematics which I had never found helpful in my work, even at such times as when I had temporarily mastered the particular techniques required, but felt not to be worth the effort to acquire real competence merely to be able to refute or criticize the work of others—as I now recognize, a serious mistake”

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