Any purchase is one for the future. If you buy a refrigerator, you are making a commitment to the future so that you have food to eat for the next ten years.
— Kenneth Arrow
That economic decisions are made without certain knowledge of the consequences is pretty self-evident. But, although many economists were aware of this elementary fact, there was no systematic analysis of economic uncertainty until about 1950.
My research, even before 1972, moved in directions beyond those cited for the Nobel Memorial Prize. Most of it, in one way or another, deals with information as an economic variable, both as to its production and as to its use.
My undergraduate education, at the City College in New York, was made possible only by the existence of that excellent free institution and the financial sacrifices of my parents.
Not every business cycle has a financial crisis. Frequently they do.
I was graduated in 1940 with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Social Science but a major in Mathematics, a paradoxical combination that was prognostic of my future interests.
My assignment was exclusively in the research field, and my first published paper, On the Optimal Use of Winds for Flight Planning, was the outgrowth of that work.
The major driver of economics is the equilibrium approach, which has taken various forms over the years. General equilibrium is the statement that all the different parts of the economy influence each other, even if it's remote, like mortgage-backed securities and their demands on automobiles.
In 1963 and later papers, I pointed out that the special market characteristics of medical care and medical insurance could be explained by reference to differences in information among the parties involved.
My graduate study was interrupted, like that of many others, by World War II.
