Remembering a Friend: Martin Feldstein, the best of the economics profession.

• Author: Summers, Lawrence H.

Martin S. Feldstein was a great economist who changed the world through research, teaching, public service, hundreds of op-eds over forty years, and leadership of the National Bureau of Economic Research. His was a respected moderate voice in an era when economic debates became increasingly shrill.

Marty, who died in June at the age of 79, didn't lack for recognition. He earned the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark medal and then its presidency, chairmanship of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, numerous honorary degrees, and memberships in prestigious scholarly and policy groups.

It was all well-deserved and has been well-chronicled in his obituaries. For me, though, Marty's death isn't merely the loss of an economics superstar; it is the loss of a mentor and friend who, through his teaching, generosity of spirit, and example, made possible everything I have been able to achieve professionally. Countless others can say the same about him, in their own ways. I met Marty in the summer of 1973 when he decided to take a chance on hiring a disheveled college sophomore as his research assistant. Marty was infinitely patient with my many questions about his research and remarkably tolerant of my inability to keep straight his data on international social-security comparisons.

Working for him, I saw what I had not seen in the classroom: that rigorous and close statistical analysis of data can provide better answers to economic questions, and possibly better lives for millions of people. A doctor can treat a patient. An economist, through research or policy advice, can improve life for a population.

Marty was appointed president of the NBER in 1977-a position he held for more than thirty years. Looking at the NBER's vast research output, one can see many things that seem commonplace today but looking back were Marty's innovations. A network of hundreds of economists collaborating, debating, and sharing data made far more progress than even geniuses working alone. More important, Marty's research showed how data about individuals from the census, tax records, or hospitals--information then rarely used by economists -could provide sharp answers to questions about policy.

Feldstein and Company

In the 1970s, Marty was publishing more papers in top scholarly journals every year than most economists produce in a lifetime. I read them avidly and saw new frontiers open up for my generation of economists to study. Before Marty...