Monday 22 October 2012

Acting your age

Miss Haribo here again,

 

Yesterday I talked about Al Roth. But this year's Nobel prize in economics was also awarded to Lloyd Shapley.

 

Lloyd Shapley is admirable in many ways, but I think one which few people know about is that despite being 89 he's still an active economist, still publishing work on very advanced topics.  He even gave some of my colleagues some advice on one of their papers recently! (Yes Miss Haribo is jealous.)

 

He's not unique amongst economists in producing good work in their later years:

 

J.K. Galbraith, who wrote some very famous work on the 1929 stock market crash published his last book at the grand old  age of 95.

 

Charles Goodhart is 76 yet has made massive contributions to understanding the cause of the financial crisis and possible reform efforts.

 

Paul Volcker is 85, yet has a rule (on banking activity restrictions) that came into effect this year, and only last week he flew over to these shores to give evidence about the effectiveness on proposed structural reform in banking.

 

I consider these four as role models in staying mentally active, well after their traditional "working" years are behind them.

 

We focus a lot on keeping our bodies healthy into old age, but our minds are important too, and we need to ensure that we keep getting mentally stimulated. It's easy to do a repetitive tiring job and then to come home and turn on the TV (I really love the Kardashians) and to veg out.  So try to make use of all the many things London and other cities offer such as art galleries, museums and adult learning centres such as Citylit or Morley College.  

 

And with that I'm fully justified at gawking at Ballgowns at the V&A for its "keeping me clever in my old age" properties.

 


Miss Haribo


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