Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 8, 1979

Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 8, 1979

The adverse economic events following the First World War turned me toward economics. In the Dakotas, where I was born (April 30, 1902), I learned during my youth how hard it was for farm families to stay solvent. Farm product prices fell abruptly by more than half. Banks went bankrupt and many...

I was born in St. Lucia on January 23, 1915. My parents, who were both school teachers, had immigrated there from Antigua about a dozen years before. The islands were dissimilar in religion and culture, so our family had some slight characteristics of immigrant minorities.