The Great Leland Yeager has Passed

Leland Yeager has passed at the age of 93. Yeager was the last of that remarkable group of scholars–including Buchanan, Tullock, Coase, Nutter–that made Virginia political economy. Yeager was a polymath perhaps best illustrated by The Yeager Mystique an appreciation by William Breit, Kenneth G. Elzinga and Thomas D. Willett written some twenty years ago (quoted below). His work on monetary theory and international monetary relations remain of great value today.

His facility with languages was legendary:

Another doctoral student, the president of the Graduate Economics Club, was working with Yeager (in Yeager’s capacity as Director of Graduate Studies) to bring Maurice Allais to the University of Virginia for a colloquium. Yeager passed any correspondence from Aliáis on to the club’s president for a response. The correspondence was in French.

Nonplussed by what he mistakenly considered Yeager’s challenge to him, the club’s president decided to retaliate. With the aid of a graduate student in another department, he responded to Yeager with a letter written in Sanskrit. Yeager was oblivious to the ruse. Innocently, he replied in Sanskrit, saying how pleased he was that the club’s president knew this language.

In a faculty of great teachers he was regarded as primus inter pares:

Sometimes he would invite students for a weekend at his Charlottesville residence, where he provided excellent cuisine and wine and conversations which could sometimes lead to a publishable manuscript. A fascinating instance is provided by this lucky house guest: “I happened to ask him some questions on a topic in monetary theory. Well, Leland immediately brought out his tape recorder, and for the next several hours I proceeded to ask him questions, which we then discussed fully. Every few minutes he would summarize the discussion on his tape recorder. Very early the next morning I could hear Leland typing away at his typewriter. When I got up, he presented me with 23 pages of transcript – he had typed up all that we had recorded the night before. We eventually converted that transcript into an article which was published by a major journal. I don’t think I will ever be able to duplicate the excitement I felt during that discussion with Leland into the wee hours of the night.

See Tyler’s personal remembrance below.

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