WHEN news came about Stanley Fischer (Stan) having passed away on May 31, I got a little emotional.
I am penning these lines in the hope that people will learn about this unique human being.
He was a three-dimensional Michael Phelps, a pinnacle reached by very few – indeed I don’t know of any other.
(Phelps, of course, is the most decorated Olympian of all time – 28 medals, 23 of them gold. His ability to win multiple gold medals across various swimming events in a single Olympic Games is unprecedented.)
First, he was every (wo) man’s economist.
It is impossible for a student of macroeconomics to not have heard of him, and learnt from him.
His ‘Macroeconomics’ with Rudi Dornbusch is the go-to textbook if you want to understand macroeconomics.
Among his students were some of the most influential central bankers of our time: Ben Bernanke, former chairman of the US Fed, Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, and Kazuo Ueda, present governor of the Bank of Japan.
(I first felt the depth of his intellectual reach while volunteering at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, helping Kansas City Fed President, Esther George. That year’s most anticipated session – one I later wrote about in ‘The one speech everyone’s waiting for’ on August 21, 2024 – bore Stan’s unmistakable influence.)
If that is not a lifetime’s achievement award by itself, consider that among his students were Lawrence H. Summers, former secretary of the US Treasury and president of Harvard University, and two chairpersons of the US Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer and Greg Mankiw.
So were many of our quants and modellers at Goldman Sachs.
Several of my professors at Columbia were his students, too.
Stan’s order, whether we realised it or not, shaped a generation of economists and investment bankers.
In several seminars/discussions where I had the good fortune to be in the same room as Stan, it was obvious that we were all in awe of him.
When he spoke, people listened because the quality of his insight commanded attention.
His English, in particular, stood out – simple, short and sharp.
Every word earned its place.
Every sentence imposed weight.
His second mega-dimension achievement was in policy.
He started on this path in 1988 when he was named chief economist at the World Bank.
He left in 1990 for MIT, only to forever return to dominate and influence policy-making from 1994 onwards.
I did not have the good fortune of being Stan’s student or colleague.
Then why am I emotional at his departure?
Because of his third and most important dimension: his humaneness.
The dictionary defines humaneness as being about kindness, compassion and consideration for others.
Any story about Stan, and especially my story, is heavily one-sided.
I cannot speak for others, but this is likely to be the case with them as well.
It is about how he helped those in need, guided us and mentored us, without possibly recognising that he was having this influence.
Two episodes from my interactions with him capture this perfectly.
I wasn’t even academically inclined – just a junior quant and proprietary currency trader at Goldman Sachs – when, in 2013, Stan invited our small group to present at his Ivy League seminar.
The policy topic: Do democratic societies grow at a faster rate than non-democratic countries?
It was a timely question.
Just a year earlier, ‘Why Nations Fail’ by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson had reshaped development economics.
A decade later, both authors would receive the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics.
(I wrote a review of the book on November 24, 2024. Still one of the pieces I’m most proud of.)
At that time, China had been growing at above 10 per cent per annum since the Great Economic Leap of 1978 and many assumed that dictatorship was the way to go.
But not Stan, not me and not a few others making the invitation to non-academic panellists all the more unusual.
Another example: My draft of a technical paper on currency misalignments achieved a stop-the-press status at an economic think tank.
At the time, I was a low-profile quant with no name to speak of.
Stan was, well, Stan – a towering figure in monetary policy circles.
His reply to my email requesting his help was short (as were all his emails) and measured.
“This must have fallen prey to some issues relating to countries that intervene in their FX markets – and must therefore be all the harder to accept. I can understand your deep passion and frustration… Best – and we should talk at some point.
“There’s merit in the numbers.”
I still don’t know what compelled him to respond.
The paper itself was poorly written, riddled with grammatical errors, but thanks to his intervention and guidance, it somehow cleared Goldman Sachs’ internal review.
I often think back to that moment.
And I really wish he’d live long enough to see what that first email had made possible for me.
My colleague documents in erudite detail Stan’s conversion to policy (IMF Finance and Development, September 2013, ‘A Class Act’).
Stan found it hard adjusting to academic life at MIT from 1990-1993.
“I remember going to theory seminars and saying to myself, what difference does it make whether this guy is right or wrong?”
Even becoming chairman of the Economics department at MIT “was only partly inspiring”, says Fischer, likening the role to Alfred Kahn’s description of a dean’s role: “The dean is to the faculty as the fire hydrant is to the dog.”
Another of his attributes – his wicked, but polite, sense of humour.
On policy influence and paraphrasing Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a country in economic trouble, wanted Stan Fischer to help steer it right.
(Credit to my wife for reminding me of Austen’s immortal opener: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”)
Stan, as first deputy managing editor at the IMF, was in charge and helped resolve the East Asian currency crisis.
He was governor at the Bank of Israel, 2005-13, and helped Israel both reform and most effectively face the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
He cut policy rates a week before even the Fed did.
Born in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Stan carried with him a lived understanding of development, growth and poverty.
That’s partly what drew me to him. And yes, he followed swimming.
He was a unique multi-dimensional Phelps – there won’t be another.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at med.akilis@gmail.com
