Here is the Post obituary. Here is Houthakker at scholar.google.com, most of all on consumer behavior and conditions under which revealed preference is a coherent theory of individual behavior. Here is another obituary; not only did he serve on the CEA twice but he was selected by the Pope as Knight Commander with Star in the Papal Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great.
I knew him briefly. I was a summer intern with Nixon’s Council of Economic Advisers in the summer of 1973 and my two bosses were Herb Stein and Marina von Neumann Whitman. At the September 1980 AEA meetings in Denver, I lobbied Marina and Hank to push Leonard Silk of the New York Times to let me represent Libertarian Party presidential candidate Ed Clark on a panel. Greenspan was representing Reagan, Charlie Shultze was representing Carter, and Houthakker was representing John Anderson. Silk wavered but I looked at Houthakker pleadingly after having asked him to support my bid, given that he represented a third-party candidate. Houthakker was fair-minded and he did. I got on.
D.
he had a long life
I will remember him
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