Stanford economist examined group decision-making and medical-care market
When he started a question with the phrase “I don’t understand,” he was being polite, said John Shoven, a Stanford economist: “He usually could have started the question with ‘You don’t understand.’”
.. He presented mathematical proof “that when there are numerous options and a diversity of opinions no voting system can be completely fair,”
.. he examined the problem of “asymmetric information” in the market for medical services and insurance.
.. Dr. Arrow’s family tree was decked with eminent economists. His nephew Lawrence Summers is a former Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard. A relative by marriage, Paul A. Samuelson, also won a Nobel in economics, while his sister Anita and her husband, Robert Summers, were economists and both taught at the University of Pennsylvania.