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My background
I was born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 27, 1931, when the US economy was in the midst of the Great Depression. My parents, Maurice and Betty Kotler, were both born in Russia and they separately came to the USA, met each other in Chicago, and married. They gave birth to three boys, Philip, Milton and Neil. I was the oldest, Milton is 5 years younger and Neil is 10 years younger. Milton lives in Washington, D.C., and spends one-third of his time in China running a successful marketing research and consulting firm. My dear brother Neil, who worked at the Smithsonian Institution and was a deep scholar in the early history of our country, passed away in 2011.
I grew up with the idea of becoming an accountant/lawyer. I received a scholarship to attend DePaul University in Chicago. After a year, I changed my professional goal and sought to be trained as an economist. I received a scholarship to attend the University of Chicago’s eminent economics department. I studied under Nobel economist Milton Friedman and I became a free market economist. After receiving my MA in economics, I received a Westinghouse fellowship to study for my PhD in economics at M.I.T. There I studied under Professors Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow, both Nobel Prize economists. I became increasingly interested in Keynesian economics under their tutelage and less interested in unregulated capitalism. They were my PhD examiners and I passed and received my M.I.T. PhD in economics in 1956. I have since been humbled by receiving 20 honorary degrees.
While at M.I.T., I had the great fortune to meet and date Nancy Kellum, a freshman at Radcliffe College (Harvard). We fell in love and were married in her sophomore year, and we both went to India for nine months to carry out my PhD dissertation study of the impact of higher wages on labor productivity.
I wanted to return to Chicago with Nancy. Nancy switched from Radcliffe to finish her undergraduate education at the University of Chicago. She enjoyed the University of Chicago college program based on the Great Books and the Socratic method of teaching.
I registered for University of Chicago courses in the social sciences to broaden my knowledge of social...