PAUL W. MACAVOY IN MEMORIAM

Abstract

“We should write a Brookings book together. Now. Don't worry, you can do it.” That was Paul MacAvoy in the early 1970s. Filled with energy. A skilled academic. Determined to put his considerable intellectual and practical abilities to work to show that even a little economics could vastly improve American public policy. The result was Energy Regulation by the Federal Power Commission, not exactly a best seller. But I learned much of value from Paul and from that experience, about the importance of finding out how the world actually worked (as we probed the depths of the Power Commission's bilious green, concrete-walled Washington offices); about the need for careful research (as we interviewed Georgia LeDakis, the employee in charge of setting natural gas pipeline rates of return); about the use of economic models (which he tried to teach me to understand); and about the public policy (the recommendations—deregulation of gas field prices; greater interconnection of the transmission network—that must flow from the research). And it was great fun. Paul was an enthusiast, with a sense of humor, who took delight in his work.