The Importance of Being Elastic

Abstract

Robert Lucas concludes his critical review of some lectures by James Tobin with a story:

The archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy, became convinced, we are told, that a particular skull unearthed in a later excavation was the head of Agamemnon. To the frustration of this creative and productive scientist, his associates confronted him with one devastating argument after another to the effect that this could not possibly be the case. Exhausted, Schliemann took up the skull and thrust it in the faces of his unconstructive critics: ‘Alright then, if he is not Agamemnon, who is he?’¹