To all interested parties: 
 
Forstater is absolutely correct.  It is a serious problem to asceertain 
intellectual parentage.  I have tried with great difficult to do so in my 
own case.  That notwithstanding, the problem is one reason to work with 
living economists to ascertain their own impressions. 
 
Warren Samuels 
 
 
>Greg Ransom writes: 
> 
>>make that: 
>> 
>>Lowe + Sombart -->  Leontief --> Solow -->  Blinder 
> 
>I don't think so.  Lowe was not really Leontief's teacher.  And I think 
>this may point to some of the pitfalls of this exercise.  Are we talking 
>about an individual's primary mentor or supervisor (again, Bortkiewicz was 
>Leontief's supervisor, not Sombart), or just anybody they took a class 
>with.  If it is the latter, we could come up with all kinds of perverse 
>links.  Also, there are supervisors and there are *supervisors* (i.e. 
there 
>is not always the same degree of influence or close mentoring across the 
>board).  And in some cases, there are other known influences (where, for 
>whatever reason, the most influential person was not the person's actual 
>teacher or supervisor, or a person's primary influence was a personal or 
>political event (e.g. Great Depression, rise of Nazism). 
> 
>The most interesting geneologies in my view would be ones that have 
>identifiable common themes.  For example, I think 
> 
>   Bortkiewicz (or Bortkiewicz + Kiel if one likes) -> Leontief -> Duchin 
> 
>is a lot more interesting to consider.  I find the Leontief -> Solow move 
>much weaker.  I guess it may depend on what aspect of one's work one is 
>interested in. 
> 
>___________________________________ 
> 
>Mathew Forstater      Department of Economics 
>        Gettysburg College     Gettysburg, PA  17325 
> 
>tel: (717) 337-6668   fax: (717) 337-6251   e-mail: 
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