News like this, is in no small part due to men scholars like Gordon Tullock whose presence at the law school was a significant one. Gordon announced his retirement today (HT: Boettke). In the coming days, there will likely be a number of statements of admiration of Gordon and his work from people who knew both better than I and will certainly have more amusing anecdotes to tell. I look forward to reading all of them. Here’s a post acknowledging Gordon’s retirement from Leonard Liggio. I did have the pleasure of serving on a dissertation committee with Gordon, discussing workshop papers with him from time to time, and running into him in the law school faculty lounge and taking a lesson about whatever was on his mind. I didn’t know Gordon very well personally. But I consider myself quite lucky to have been his colleague for several years and appreciative of the interactions we did have. You didn’t need to know him for too long to know that you could learn a lot from him. Gordon is an intellectual giant who knows a lot about, well, seemingly everything. This is sad news for George Mason, who lost another intellectual giant in law and economics earlier this year in Vernon Smith who moved to Chapman University. Both will be missed.
Here is Gordon’s Wikipedia entry, and here is Gordon’s own web page.