A Remembrance of William Vickrey
Dick Netzer
[Reprinted from Land Lines, November 1996,
Vol. 8, No.6]
William Vickrey died on October 11, three days after the
announcement of his being awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics,
while on his way to the Lincoln Institute for the annual research
conference of the Committee on Taxation, Resources and Economic
Development (TRED).
TRED meetings have been sponsored by the Institute for 20 years,
and Bill Vickrey was at every one of those meetings. Indeed, his
connection with TRED goes back even further, for he was one of the
committee's founding members more than 35 years ago. TRED began in
discussions among academic economists who were interested in
contemporary applications of the ideas of Henry George and were also
concerned with land and natural resources. Over the years, TRED's
membership expanded to include public finance and urban economists
interested in the use of land and economic phenomena related to how
things are arranged over space.
Bill Vickrey was the ultimate intellectual sparkplug of TRED from
the beginning. His wonderful inventiveness and irreverence came out
in inspired, seemingly off-the-cuff interventions in the discussion,
some of which have changed thinking about economics and economic
policy forever. For example, in one sally he imagined a linear city
in which all structures were truly mobile. This image made it
possible to think clearly about location, the effects of the
durability and immobility of structures, and appropriate land
policies, without being trapped by peripheral issues. No one could
cut to the quick like Vickrey.
TRED member Ed Mills of Northwestern University spoke to our
assembled group at the Institute shortly after hearing the news of
Bill's untimely death. "Bill Vickrey lived his life exactly as
he wished, right to the end," Mills said. "He died with
his boots on." Those of us who have been honored to know Bill
for some time have been shaped by our contact with him, and we will
miss him.