When Edward C. Prescott joined the economics faculty at the W. P. Carey School of Business in early October 2003, it was the biggest and most important step to date in the ongoing effort to build a top department at ASU.

“ We had set a goal to build a great economics department quite a few years back. With the support of the W.P. Carey School and a very substantial investment from President Crow, we are seeing the results of this labor,” said Arthur Blakemore, economics department chairman. “Student by student, faculty member by faculty member, we have been putting the pieces together. Ed Prescott instantly brings this deliberate academic building process to an entirely different level.”

Always known as a congenial and solid teaching department, economics began to increase its research firepower six years ago, when newly established endowments provided the financial resources to begin the hiring of top economics thinkers. Manuel Santos was the first, coming to ASU for the Bank One Professorship of Economics. Soon after, Edward Rondthaler endowed the Rondthaler Chair of Economics, enabling the department to hire one of Prescott’s former students, Richard Rogerson.

The department now has five endowed positions, and each strategic hire led to the next. ASU’s economics undergraduates have been succeeding, too, going on to complete law degrees, doctoral degrees in economics, and the M.B.A. programs at virtually every elite university from Harvard, University of Chicago, Stanford, MIT, Oxford, London School of Economics, and others. Taken together, these achievements built a platform capable of supporting a significant scholarly leader.

“ Edward Prescott, who holds the W.P. Carey Chair of
Economics, represents the pinnacle of the academic world,” Blakemore said. “Without the pieces already in place, we could never have attracted him when we did.”

Robert Mittelstaedt, dean of the business school, explained the development of the economics department this way. “An outstanding faculty is at the core of great departments or entire schools in universities. But one does not simply go out and hire a great faculty all at once,” he asserted. “It cannot be done because most great academic work is the result of collaborative effort .... Ed Prescott was attracted to our economics department because he knew people here, knew their talents, had worked with some in the past and felt comfortable with their respect for his work and the likelihood of good working relationships.”

Prescott’s presence on the faculty is expected to quicken the pace of improvement.

“We have sometimes searched for two to three years to find the professor we want to fill our positions. Our access to faculty at the top of the profession now has accelerated dramatically,” Blakemore explained. — Liz Farquhar

To provide feedback on this article, click here.

Photos: Dave Tevis

Nobel Cause
Economics Explained