too bad

Economics was born out of Philosophy in anglo-saxonic countries. Adam Smith himself was a professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. In Portugal, Economics emerged as a new field of studies through Law. From the very beginning the new discipline was permanently damaged.

As a student of Economics at Porto University in the early seventies I was extensively exposed to the study of Law. It is no exaggeration to say that about 30% of the Economics programme at that time was made up of courses in Law and I must say that I enjoyed most of them.

I remember how I was impressed by the course of Introdução ao Direito. It was taught by a former Assistant Professor at Coimbra University and he performed his job very competently. But what I enjoyed most in that course was the textbook by Antunes Varela, also a Professor at Coimbra. What a beautiful textbook that was. It was written in plain language, concepts and ideas were presented in a simple, clear, interesting way as if the author was aimed at seducing young minds into his field. If that was his purpose - actually, I believe that must be the purpose of a true professor - he really succeeded. Introdução ao Direito was by far my preferred course as a first year Economics student.

The following year I was a student of João Baptista Machado. He had come from Coimbra that year as a result, it was rumoured, of personal and professional problems. He was obviously a tormented man and not an easy professor to understand. But he was certainly a most honest thinker in his field and, as far as I can judge, an innovative one. I remember doing a brilliant examination in his course. Later I became his colleague. I still regret his untimely death because he was a real scholar.

Then, there was Teixeira Ribeiro textbook in Public Finance. Like Varela, probably exceeding him, Ribeiro was a master of pedagogy. This book was marvellously writen and organized. I never knew him personally but to this day my interest in the field started with the book of Teixeira Ribeiro, also a Professor at Coimbra. From that time forth I have read many textbooks in Public Finance, some by Nobel laureautes, but none matches the persuasiveness, the elegant clarity of thought of Ribeiro´s. He was a master in his field. It is too bad he was Portuguese.