Arnold Harberger'S Contributions To Public Policy

It is with great pleasure that I review some of the contributions to the field of public policy that Arnold Harberger has made in his distinguished career. Arnold is a teacher, researcher, policy economist, and missionary for the adoption of good policies in countries around the globe. His enormous influence on public policy has come about because of the last four factors. First, his considerable intellectual energy has stayed focused on issues that are rooted in the real world. Second, the intellectual leadership and mentoring that he as provided to hundreds of graduate students both at the University of Chicago and UCLA have created a crops of policy economists who are prepared , with enthusiasm, to apply Harberger’s fundamentals-based , real-world-oriented training to the economic problems facing many countries. Third, the care and attention he has taken to communicate the results of his explorations of economic theory and policy analysis set him apart from much of the profession. Fourth, Harberger is the ultimate country doctor, who still makes house calls.