1. Leo, telling the “chochem” story in this video, says he was one year old. Klara Samuels also recounts this story in her book, “God Does Play Dice.”
2. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, monetarists, led by Milton Friedman, proposed a different primary cause for the depression: contraction in the money supply caused by numerous simultaneous bank failures. They argued that increasing the money supply was the key to alleviating or reversing the depression. Even today, “[e]conomists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of the Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#cite_note-in_JSTOR-19)
3. “Hurwicz took night classes at LSE as well, and ‘was able to more or less do two years in one, at least in terms of inhaling knowledge.'” Minnesota Economics, Fall 2006
4. Minnesota Economics, Fall 2006
5. “Robertson, Dennis Holme” on encyclopedia.com
6. “The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1974”
7. Interview with son, Michael Hurwicz, November 20, 2007: http://leo-vid.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/
8. Mussolini declared war on Britain and France on June 10, 1940. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Italy_during_World_War_II#Italy_enters_the_war:_June_1940
9. “Leonid Hurwicz – Biographical,” http://www.nobelprize.org, based on “Leonid Hurwicz’s Game,” by Ann Bauer, Twin Cities Business, March 1, 2008. (Not currently available online.)
10. “The Nobel Prize in Economics 2007: Background on Contributions to the Theory of Mechanism Design by Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson,” Matthew O. Jackson, October 15, 2007.
11. “Founder of Modern Economics: Becoming Samuelson, 1915-1948”, by Roger E. Backhouse, p. 341
12. Honorary degrees are listed in an article, “Intelligent Designer,” in Minnesota Economics, Fall 2006.
13. Klara Samuels says (p. 47), “Although only 22 in 1939, he had already received an undergraduate degree in law, which is similar to a bachelor’s degree in political science in the United States, and minored in physics …”
14. The Economist, Dec. 17, 2009)
15. Founder of Modern Economics: Becoming Samuelson, 1915-1948, Roger E. Backhouse, pp 341-342.
16. Mathematical Economics at Cowles, presented at The Cowles Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration, June 3, 1983, by Gérard Debreu The Wikipedia article says he started in January, 1942. However, the source cited (https://web.archive.org/web/20070615230712/http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/reports/1942-46b.htm) actually just says 1942. I suspect this is because this source only applies to the period starting in 1942. (“Biographies and brief surveys of the activities of research associates during 1942–1946”) For these reasons, I place more credence in the July, 1941, date.