'For graduate studies he transferred to Harvard, where he was the beneficiary of exchanges with great economists including, among others, Joseph Schumpeter, Wassily Leontief and Gottfried Haberler. Intellectually he continued to impress; his research output was prodigious and his post-doctoral future seemed assured … yet before his PhD was awarded Samuelson discovered that, “Harvard’s revealed preference consisted of no majority insistence that I stay”.
Although suspicions persisted that anti-Semitism played a part in his rejection, they were supplemented with a feeling that the young Samuelson was perhaps too precocious for comfort. He transferred instead to MIT.'
The obituary reminds us also that Samuelson was not just a theoretical economist. His basic textbook, which sold more than four million copies, making him a multimillionaire, & remained available in college bookshops six decades later, did so not just by being the first of its kind but, by producing a new edition every year, ensured only the weakest of second hand markets as an economical source of supply for cash-strapped new students.
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