The Golden Anniversary: Stolper–Samuelson at 50

It is a pleasure for me to lead off the panel discussion, a pleasure made double by the fact that it honors two of my former professors—Wolfgang Stolper for my first course in economics at Swarthmore in 1948 and Paul Samuelson at MIT four years later. We are here today to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the appearance of their joint paper, a celebration which by rights should have taken place earlier, and would have if this country’s official house organ, the American Economic Review, had not rejected the piece. It all turned out well in the end, and I frequently cite this rejection to my students to prepare them for the real world…