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The Eastern Economic Journal is thinking of putting together a collection of stories and
anecdotes about James Tobin in a symposium to honor him, since he was a former president
of the association. What we are looking for are humorous or other stories which convey a
sense of Jim. If any of you know any Tobin stories, I’d appreciate you e-mailing them to
me along with where the story comes from so we can give proper attribution.
  
Many thanks.  
 
Dave Colander 
 
Here’s a couple contributions from Bob Goldfarb that should give you an idea of what we
have in mind. We will edit the stories and give the source in the article.
 
 
Tobin had a very slow way of talking, one feature of which was that one never knew when a
sentence was actually completed. That is, he would finish a clause, and there would be a
pause, which might then be followed by another clause x seconds later. Or, it might turn
out, that was the end of the sentence. This was quite unnerving. One of my fellow graduate
students, who shall remain nameless, informed us that he was in Tobin’s office, and was so
unnerved by this process of “waiting for Godot’s last clause” (my phrase, not his), that
when the interview was over,he got up and walked into the closet (rather than exiting the
office through the correct door...).
 
One of my major memories -- and I am not making this up—was, after one of the first
classes I had with him -- it was the second semester of grad econ theory -- I had the
following reaction: “This is the smartest person I have ever seen!! If that is what
professional econ is, what am I doing here???” (I later realized -- correctly I hope --
that he did not have the time to work on the 9 million interesting topics that were around
in econ, so I could stay on).
 
A third story is of another classmate who once accused Tobin (during his lecture on
expected utility theory, or some such) of “having reintroduced cardinal utility.” Tobin
replied “....That may be  a sin, but it's not a CARDINAL sin....”).
 
David Colander 
 
 
 
 
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