The Art of Law and Economics: An Autobiographical Essay

ground will be deterred from choosing a career in economics. This was not always the case. Like Krugman, I came to economics from a liberal arts background, picking up technical skills as needed both during and after graduate school. My journey, however, was more circui tous and unplanned than Krugman's. That I ended up a professor of economics and law is the outcome of an unlikely chain of events. I started out as an art major at the High School of Music & Art in New York City. Although art majors also were required to take the standard fare of academic courses, it was not a strenuous academic program, and it was possible to do reasonably well without much effort. The emphasis was clearly on the arts, and many graduates went on to specialized art and music colleges in the New York area. I ruled that out since I was only an average art student. I also experimented with architecture in high school. But here I fared no better and decided not to pursue it further, in part, because my closest friend had far more talent than I.2 When I entered Columbia College at seven teen I was not well prepared for its demanding academic program (which remains largely intact to this day). I had a good background in the arts but undeveloped study habits. Playing tennis and piano, frequenting jazz clubs and just hanging around Greenwich Village with my high school friends held my interest more than studying western civilization and humanities. But in one respect Music and Art taught me a valuable lesson. It impressed upon me the importance of being creative and imaginative in one's work. I have carried that lesson with me throughout my academic career. I strive to be imaginative both in my choice of topics and my approach to them. Rarely have I come up with a topic by sifting through the economics literature or scouring footnotes hoping to find loose ends to tidy up. I have often stumbled upon a good topic while preparing my classes, participating in seminars and workshops, auditing law school classes, talking to colleagues or just reading the newspaper. The trick is to recognize what one has stumbled upon, or as Robertson Davies writes in his latest novel: "to see what is right in front of one's nose; that is the task. . ."3