29/02/08
// Robert M. Solow awared the title
of Doctor Honoris Causa by UPF
 Robert
M. Solow, emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
and Nobel Prize-winner for Economics in 1987 awared te title of Doctor Honoris
Causa by UPF on 29 February at a ceremony that toke place at 12.00 o'clock
at UPF's Ciutadella campus auditorium. Robert M. Solow's promoter was Andreu
Mas Colell, professor of the Department of Economics and Business at the University,
and the laudatio speech was given by Jaume Ventura, professor at the same
department and researcher at the Research Centre for International Economics (CREI).
The Board of Governors of UPF agreed
to award the honoris causa to this most eminent academic at the proposal of the
Department of Economics and Business "for his crucial contributions in
a variety of fields of economic science, which have constituted a starting point
for modern economic theory of growth, and in recognition of his extensive and
at the same time intense academic and intellectual trajectory". Robert
M. Solow has been UPF's fourth doctor honoris causa since its
foundation in 1990, following in the footsteps of South African archbishop Desmond
Tutu (2000), historian and humanist Miquel Batllori, together with eleven universities
in Catalonia (2002) and film maker Woody Allen (2007). The
investiture ceremony  After
the academic authorities entered the auditorium, Josep Joan Moreso, UPF
rector, commenced the act. He was followed by Tomās de Montagut, vicerector
of Institutional Relations and secretary general, who proceeded with the reading
of the agreement by the Board of Governors to confer the honoris causa degree
upon Robert M. Solow. Once Andreu Mas-Colell and the doctorand entered the auditorium,
Jaume Ventura made his laudatio speech.
> Robert
M Solow Laudatio, pronounced by Jaume Ventura (english version, pdf) The
most solemn moment in the ceremony was Robert M. Solow's investiture. He pronounced
then his speech of acceptance. Josep Joan Moreso made the closing speech. Music
also was present during the ceremony, as there was several performances by the
UPF Choir and Chamber Orchestra. The University choir, directed by Enric
Azuaga, performed two pieces, at the start and at the end of the act, which
will be an adaptation of Beethoven's 7th Symphony and the University's traditional
Gaudeamus Igitur, and the popular Shenadoah. The Chamber Orchestra, led by Diego
Miguel-Urzanqui, interpreted a piece by Johan Pachelbel once the new Doctor
accepted his award. One
of the fathers of modern economics  The
extensive and at the same time intense academic and intellectual trajectory of
Robert M. Solow, emeritus professor at the
MIT (the institution to which he has been associated since 1949) make him,
without a doubt, one of the fundamental pillars of modern economic science.
Robert
M. Solow was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1924 immigrant parents. He belongs
to the first generation of his family that was able to go to university. Having
gone through education at the state schools in his birthplace, in 1940 he got
a grant to go to Harvard and, among others, studied sociology, anthropology and
economics. At the end of 1942 he joined the army and served in North Africa, Sicily
and Italy during the Second World War. Upon returning to Harvard, in 1945, he
decided to pursue his studies of economics with Wassily Leontief, his master,
friend and guide, whom he assisted in calculating the first set of technical coefficients
of the input-output tables. Robert
M. Solow has made crucial contributions in several fields of the science of
economics, starting in 1956 with the publication of the article entitled "A contribution
to the theory of economic growth". In this fundamental article, Robert Solow develops
a mathematical model, in the form of a differential equation, which described
how increased capital stock generates greater per-capita production. This contribution
and his successive work, have founded a starting point for modern economic theory
of growth, highlighting the importance of knowledge as a key variable for economic
growth. In 1987, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science awarded Robert M. Solow
with the Nobel Prize for Economics precisely "for his contributions in the field
of the theory of economic growth". Currently,
Robert Solow is president of the Board of Directors of Manpower Demonstrations
Research Corporation, a non-profit making organisation which has undertaken pioneering
work in the experimentation and evaluation of policies to boost occupation and
improve the incomes of certain underprivileged groups, such as children that fail
at secondary school. Member of the scientific committee of the Barcelona
Graduate School of Economics, recently, he has collaborated with the Russell
Sage Foundation in a study on the extraordinary results of the North American
economy during the period 1995-2000, which has given rise to the book, entitled
The Roaring Nineties. |
