Contratando Thomas Sargent

A interessante estória de como Thomas Sargent foi contratado na New York University e a tremenda externalidade positiva que isso gerou: Sargent deliberated for months before making a decision. Nonetheless, word had gotten out in the field that he was taking N.Y.U.'s offer seriously. Ennio Stacchetti, an old colleague of Sargent's, received a phone call from Sargent ''strongly hinting that he was on his way to N.Y.U.'' Stacchetti promptly accepted his own offer from N.Y.U. John Leahy at Boston University did likewise. For Gianluca Violante, a young macroeconomist, what transpired among the recruits was ''a critical-mass effect. Economists like to think of it as a 'coordination equilibrium,' in which one person's independent decision is affected by the decisions of others around him. In other words, something big was going on.''