Monday, April 4, 2011
Pages 217-219
Once again, Mimi threw Fischer out and this time it was permanent. Their divorce became final in November 1983. Academic finance was just beginning to work its way into the corporate world at this time. Fischer was hired by Goldman Sachs in February of 1984 after Robert Merton convinced Goldman they could use a finance person at a high level in the firm. Fischer became president of the American Finance Association after a few years at Goldman and he published all of his papers in a book called Business Cycles and Equilibrium. He greatly enjoyed the learning experience at Goldman and they appreciated him for his deep, thoughtful approach to business finance.
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A for Jack.
ReplyDeleteI would not say that academic finance was "just beginning" to work its way into the corporate world in 1983. I would rather say that it was reaching a tipping point in public consciousness: think about it, Wall Street came out just a few years later.
Also, he didn't collect "all" his papers in that book, just the ones on macroeconomics he'd been working on at MIT.
I'll add that Mehrling's point about Wall Street is really about the sort of person they hired. Prior to this, it was primarily two sorts: 1) local guys, who started out of high school on the trading floor, and worked their way up with incredible hours, and 2) people who got front office jobs because they went to the right schools, where their parents went too. Neither group knew much finance, and the message of the takeover boom of the 80's was that they lost a lot of money if they didn't jump on the high finance bandwagon.
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