Dear all, A new year, another set of anniversaries. Here is what I managed to dig up over the holidays: 400 years ago, Italian merchant Bernardo Davanzati (1529-1606) died. In his "Lezione delle Monete" (1588), Davanzati not only "resolved the water/diamond paradox before it had even been perceived" (Niehans 1990), he also improved Bodin's formulation of the quantity theory of money. 350 years ago, English politician and public servant Charles Davenant (1656-1714) was born. Davenant was a foremost expert on public finance (e.g., Discourses on the Publick Revenues and on the Trade of England, 1698) and an early exponent of what he called "the art of reasoning by figures upon things relating to government" (i.e., Political Arithmetic or quantitative economics). 250 years ago, Francois Quesnay (1694-1774) published his first piece in economics, namely the article "Fermiers" published in the French Encyclopedie (1756). In the same year William Godwin (1756-1836) was born. Goodwin, usually described as a philosophical anarchist, was the principal prophet of progress with whom Malthus took issue in his Essay on the Principle of Population. 200 years ago, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and Michel Chevalier (1806-1879) were born. While Mill does not need to be introduced, Michel Chevalier probably does, even though during his life-time he was a well-known economist and leader of the French liberal School. He is also the Chevalier of the Cobden-Chevalier commercial treaty between England and France of 1860, which led to a substantial reduction in tariffs and encouraged series of other (quasi-) free-trade treaties in Europe. 150 years ago, Thomas Tooke (1774-1858), leader of the banking school, published his attack "On the Bank Charter Act of 1844" (1856), which separated the banking and currency functions of the Bank of England and restricted its note issue in accordance with the proposals of the currency school. During the same year, an early proponent of managed paper money, Thomas Attwood (1783-1856) died. This was also the year Etienne Cabet (1788-1856), the French utopian socialist and founder of the Icarian movement, died. 100 years ago, Wassily W. Leontief (1906-1999) and Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906-1994) were born, and Rudolf Auspitz (1837-1906) died (the Austrian mathematical economist and politician whose "Untersuchungen ueber die Theorie des Preises" (with Richard Lieben) influenced Pareto, Edgeworth and Fisher). As to important centennial publications: Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) published his "Manuale di economia politica," Knut Wicksell (1851-1926) published the second volume of his "Lectures on Political Economy" (on money and credit) and Irving Fisher clarified "The Nature of Capital and Income." 50 years ago, 1956, was not only the year Elvis landed his first Number 1 hit, it was also a year in which many seeds for controversy and new developments were sown in economics. Take for instance capital and growth theory: It was in 1956, that Joan Robinson (1903-1983) published her views about "The Accumulation of Capital" and Nicholas Kaldor (1908-1986) his "Alternative Theories of Distribution" (Review of Economic Studies 23), while in the same year Robert Solow published "A contribution to the theory of economic growth" (QJE 70). Or take monetary theory: It was in 1956 that Don Patinkin (1922-1995) published his influential "Money, Interest, and Prices: An Integration of Monetary and Value Theory," the same year Milton Friedman initiated a counterrevolution in monetary theory with his restatement of the quantity theory ("The Quantity Theory of Money - a Restatement," which was the introduction to the "Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money," a product of his Workshop in Money and Banking at Chicago). Meanwhile, also in 1956, Sidney Weintraub (1914-1983) made an early suggestion for a macro-microfoundation in "A Macroeconomic Approach to the Theory of Wages (AER 46), Herbert Simon proposed a different approach to decision-making in "Rational choice and the structure of the environment? (Psychological Review 63), Richard Lipsey and Kelvin Lancaster introduced "The General Theory of Second Best" (Review of Economic Studies), John R. Hicks (1904-1989) offered "A Revision of Demand Theory" (1956), Jan Tinbergen (1903-1994) published "Economic Policy: Principles and Design," Thomas C. Schelling published "An essay on bargaining" (AER 46), and Walter Isard revived the economics of location in his "Location and Space Economy." 1956 was also the year that business cycle theorist Albert Aftalion (1874-1956) died. Finally, 25 years ago, James Tobin (1918-2002) was awarded the 1981 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of financial markets, while Stiglitz and Weiss published "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information" (AER 71). Clive W.J. Granger explained "Some properties of time series data and their use in econometric model specification" (Journal of Econometrics), Kenneth Boulding (1910-1993) put forward his "Evolutionary Economics," Amartya Sen published an essay on "Poverty and Famines," and Arthur Okun's "Prices and Quantities: A Macroeconomic Analysis" was published posthumously. Feel free to point out errors and omissions, and a Happy New Year to all of you. Thomas Moser