 Let us begin, please. I know a great many of you, but I'm delighted to see some faces that I at least think I don't know, as I had hoped that we would have a nice turnout today for remembering Bob Stern, who boy have I learned in the last few weeks how many people loved Bob and respected Bob and are indebted to Bob for many of the things that he did for other people. So thank you all for coming. I'm glad to have you here. Now, we scheduled this event for today precisely because Everett and Caroline Stern, Bob's kids, not really kids anymore, we're gonna be in town coincidentally for, I believe, a wedding, right? Oh, well, you're the newlyweds? Oh, wonderful. Okay, so because of that, they were gonna be in town and putting it on today meant that they could both attend. Actually, Caroline had to change her flight back in order to do it today because Everett couldn't do it yesterday. Then, as it turns out, unfortunately, Everett hasn't been able to attend. He had a medical issue that kept him from flying. So he's not with us today, even though that had been the plan. And I don't know whether he's watching. We are streaming this event live. So I'm hoping that he is watching. And if so, hi, wherever you are. Hi, hello. Hi, hello. And of course, you're here, so you don't need to do that, but you may want to relive the experience. We are recording it and we'll be posting it on the Ford School website where you can go look at it over and over again if you want. Because of that, various people are going to be speaking. When you do speak, I'm gonna need you to come up here and stand more or less where I am because this is the microphone that's capturing this all for both the streaming and for the recording of it, okay? So keep that in mind. Now let me tell you what we plan to do here. We have four videos, short videos from various people who are remembering Bob, three of them from other countries, people who couldn't make it to come in person and therefore recorded videos that they sent. One of them actually arrived from India within the last hour from Rajesh for those who know him and his family. So we'll be seeing those things. There are several of you that told me at some point that you would speak and I'll be calling on you to do that. I hope you remember that you said you were gonna do that. There will also be a few cases of reading things that people wrote and sent in. I think maybe three of those things. So we'll go through all of those things and then when we're done, we'll ask anybody else who's here and would like to stand up and say anything to do so. And that will be it. And then we have ordered some very light refreshments that I don't know if they're out there yet but they will be out in what we call the Great Hall right outside this room. And so when we're done in here, you can stand around and drink and eat and talk to each other. And then finally, I'm inviting any or all of you to join us for dinner at the Gourmet Garden Chinese restaurant. This was actually, although he may not see it that way, this was Ev's idea. When we talked about what we might do, he says, well, we can get together at a Chinese restaurant because Bob always liked Chinese. In fact, he always liked in particular one Chinese restaurant. Why aren't we going there? Cause it went out of business, unfortunately, the middle kingdom. So we're going to the Gourmet Garden, which I've liked. I have no idea whether Bob would like it but that's the idea. So anybody who wants to join us there afterwards, please do. It is Dutch treat. I don't know if the younger people know what that means but many of us do. In other words, you're paying your own way. I'm not buying your dinner. But I would be more than happy to sit with you and talk with you if you choose to come, which I hope many of you will. Yeah, okay. We do have enough things to do here that I, and I better set an example here. We need to keep our remarks relatively brief or we're going to go on all night. So please keep it down to just three minutes or something like that if you can. Now, it would be appropriate presumably for me to start with some of my recollections. Did I say this? I'm Alan Deirdorff. If I didn't mention that, I should. And Bob and I worked together for most of my career and a pretty fair portion of his career. And that's in some sense the reason I'm doing this but frankly, it's much more than just that we work together. There is no person in the world, has been no person in the world, more important to my professional life than Bob Stern. He hired me. I kind of believe against the will of some of his colleagues but some of them are here and could perhaps comment on that. That's not what we're here about. But anyway, he hired me. He mentored me, took care of me kind of when I was an assistant professor. In fact, the very first thing he did was when he learned what the associate chair of economics at the time had assigned me to teach. He says, no, that won't do, that's too much. And he went to John Cross and said, no, absolutely. He's not gonna teach both 401 and 402. Give him two sections of something, 402, I think, which is why I became a macroeconomist. So he was looking out for me from the very beginning. He would read my work, give me feedback on it, never told me what to do at all. And never in my recollection suggested that we work together or co-author things until after I was promoted. Another thing, which I'm pretty sure wouldn't have happened without his role, but again, nobody will tell me what was said in that meeting. So he was very much responsible for all of that. And then after I was promoted, he and I started again at his initiative to work together on this, that, and the other thing and ended up building what a model, the Michigan model, which we used for all sorts of purposes and what got to travel around the world often together. Very early on, he and I would fly together and I would insist on the smoking section because I smoked, he didn't. On the other hand, he was married to Lucetta, who did. I'm just relieved that he lived a long, oh Giuseppe, welcome, I'm sorry, didn't expect you. Giuseppe comes to us all the way from Italy just for this event, right? Well, it's sort of. Anyway, as far as I know, the secondhand smoke from me and from Lucetta were not harmful to Bob, but one could imagine that they might have been. And so then we worked together and published together for, as I say, for all of my career until what, it was just five years ago, Bob had long since retired formally from the Economics Department and from the Ford School, but he continued to teach in the Ford School most of you probably know this, very successful pair of seminars that he would do. Students were very disappointed when he didn't return from California. He went out to California just to escape the ice, I think, and to be close to his daughter, I'm sure, and his grandson, right? Yeah, but ended up staying out there. It's a mystery to those of us back here why he would prefer California, but he did. But then he managed to get set up so that he could teach those same seminars at the policy school at Berkeley, which he did, I believe, until last fall, right? So, man, this is what an energetic go-get-em guy. I mean, you saw him running across campus constantly, right? Well, actually no. Physically, he was, and increasingly so in his later years, unable to move around a great deal. He needed help and he got a lot of help from people who were here, for which we can all be thankful. And he managed, as you'll be hearing later on, to continue to travel, even when it must have been extremely difficult for him and for various purposes. So, there's nobody in the world that, especially outside of my immediate family, that I would want to honor more than Bob Stern. And so that's why, from my point of view, that's why we're doing this. Let me turn then to the things that we have scheduled here. And, hello. Why does it look like that? Can you get it to the other presentation? Okay. By the way, this whole event could never have happened. Of course, it remains to be seen how well it's gonna happen without the help of Cliff here and Chris, who may be back there and Aaron did some stuff and others, Laura's group. We've got a lot of help from people in the Ford School. Okay, here we go, the gathering. And our first video is from Philip Abraham. As you see, he got his PhD in 87 and was a Stern student. Oh, of course, I have to hit him. There we go. Hello, I'm Philip Abraham and I'm joining from a rainy day in Belgium to remember Bob Stern, who has meant a lot for me and my family. As a matter of fact, Bob studied together with my father at Columbia and so we were family friends even before I came to do my PhD at the University of Michigan. My first meeting with Bob was actually when I was 13 years old, when I was invited to come to his place and he took me to Cape Cod. And one thing I do remember was that he invited me also to a Red Sox baseball game, which for me as a European soccer fanatic was the first experience with another sport in the US. My fondest memories, however, were linked to the years I spent together with my wife, Hilde, as PhD students in Ann Arbor. We agreed that those days were some of the best that we have had in our life and Bob was a full part of making this possible for us. One of the things that he helped us to do was logistical support. As a matter of fact, from Lucetta and Bob, we got some very yellow plates and other useful things that we could not afford as graduate students. Social support, also very important. Lucetta and Bob invited us several times to their home and that was always very nice to have very good memories about this. Professional support, for sure. Bob and Alan hired me as a research assistant in my second year of graduate school to work on this famous Michigan model, like so many of the former PhD students. Bob helped me in all possible ways. He really made it possible for me to do my PhD. He corrected me and he got me back on track when things were not going that well. He also, and that I liked a lot about it, it was always very clear what he expected from PhD students and from myself. It was not the easy way. You had to perform and this is also what I always try to convey to my own PhD students. And finally, what he did in his very implicit and nice way was making clear what my strengths were, that's nice, but also what my weaknesses were and that helped me a lot during my professional career. When I got back from Ann Arbor and returned to my country, Belgium, where I became a professor at the University of Leuven, we always kept in touch. I visited him several times in Ann Arbor. He came several times to give seminars and to meet the family and those were always very nice moments. So when I heard that he had deceased well, then of course it did something to me and not only to me but my whole family. My father was also now in hospital at this moment, wanted to express his deepest sympathy to Carol Everett and the whole family. My brother who spent also several years doing his PhD in Ann Arbor but not in economics in a sense it's regards and my wife, Hilde, also wanted to mention that Bob and Bissetta meant a lot for her as well. So I hope that the remembrance service goes on and that we all can have very fond memories of what Bob achieved and what a very nice person he was. Thank you very much. Guess what? You're up, Dave. Dave Richardson knows Mel Levitsi. I didn't know that. Of course you would, I'm forgetting that he had this dark period in his life when he was at the University of Leuven. Okay, Dave is gonna share his memories. I'll let you introduce yourself and explain your. I'm Dave Richardson. I'm retired now and I was a Michigan graduate student in the late 1960s. Bob came to Michigan in the early 1960s so I was one of his group from the late 1960s. During that time I co-authored and I authored many things with Bob and for Bob but I got a job at the University of Wisconsin and I had an equally magical mentor in Robert Baldwin and those of us who knew both Bob's call them often the two Bob's and later on I'll give you Bob Baldwin's opinion of Bob Stern which was warm and wonderful. Bob Stern and I had serious falling out, however. In the 1990s, Caroline probably knows that there was an iron resistance part of Bob that in professional circles was usually very well taken and in our case it was unresolved. But when I retired institutionally at the end of 2012 after a period of pretty much silence between Bob and me for 15 years, Bob flew from Berkeley to Washington with his health aid, paid for both as far as I know and attended the reception, the retirement reception party that we had there and gave wonderful and warm remarks about me without his saying so that blew me away because he was offering to me a kind of peace offering. Let's make up again by doing so dramatic a thing for me. So I'm deeply appreciative and I'm deeply sorry, Caroline for you and my remarks today are in a sense partly posthumous reciprocity for what Bob did for me, not just in the early days that I'll tell you about a little bit more, but in that final retirement celebration. What I'll tell you about early in my career was a wise intervention by Bob. Bob had many wise interventions with many of us and the one with me I think illustrates some of his professional strengths that I wish more of us had these days. Now, if Bob were here, he might say it was a cunning intervention on his part, not just a wise one. I don't know for sure, but I'll bet it was, but it illustrates Bob simultaneously in his two persona. Bob had one persona that you could call friendly counselor. I think Lucetta probably helped him with the friendly counselor persona. And his other personas was he was a Delphic professional seer. More than even Bob Baldwin, my colleague at Wisconsin, Bob Stern, I think had a sense of judgment about what was important and coming to be important in the profession that he never quite could articulate except when there was a decision to be made regarding a paper or a conference or one of his students. And he also in that Delphic professional strength that he had could identify who could do the important work that needed to be done. Let me tell you therefore the early story in which I was the beneficiary of him making a judgment over important work to be done and who could do it. Here's the old story from the late 1960s when I almost dropped out of graduate school for financial reasons. And Bob Stern saved me, literally. Michigan Department of the late 1960s, as several of you in the audience know, was tough, it was young, and it was on the make. And grad students felt more than the usual grad student pressures in the late 1960s here at Michigan. I almost failed out of Saul Hyman's first year micro class. B minus Saul, you would not remember that. That's the barest of passes. And at that time, we wrote comprehensive exams at the end of first year in theory and at the end of second year in the two fields, two fields, not just one field, two fields that we represented. So courses and comps, courses and comps, courses and comps in a young department on the make. It was pretty brutal. Pressures were so intense that three of us out of a cohort of about 25 had unexpected babies. Nine months after the second year set of comps. We were serious. And I know in two of the three cases, my own included, we were taking all the necessary precautions. We were rational actors, remember. We're graduate student economists. So how this happened, a three out of 25, I have no idea. But my wife sent my plans for financial support during my third and fourth and fifth year of grad school were shattered, completely shattered. My wife is a graduate of the library school here. She graduated from the library school and had our baby two weeks later. But someone had to work to take care of the baby. It had to be her or me. It turned out to be me as it turned out. But looking at this from the perspective of the second summer after graduate school, I was at one of the lowest points ever in my life. I was discouraged, I was depressed. I thought now I needed to provide for the family and leave graduate school, get a job somehow because this was remember the late 60s. We hadn't thought about the idea of house husband's yet. So I visited Bob Stern early in third year to ask if there was any advice he could give me, any wisdom he could give me, any job leads he could give me outside of academics and graduate school and to share with him how I felt and apologize to him for in a sense, failing at the task. Mm, mm. Bob Stern had a good way of musing. He didn't use mm, but you could tell he was thinking mm. And in his usual serious way and sort of always kind of inquisitive way with eyes not quite open, but always twinkling through the eyelids. You know the Bob Stern look, you're going to see it on the videos we have. He said, well, I do have a project that maybe you could be funded for if you get permission from the Canada Council that was otherwise supporting me but at a pretty low level. Today we'd call that project a robustness analysis or a sensitivity check. That's the modern way of thinking about the project he had for me. And it had to do with one of the techniques that Bob Stern and Ed Leamer included in their path breaking book called Quantitative International Economics. I thought the project was pedestrian because it involved huge data collection, all kinds of running regressions when regressions were run using punch cards and going up to North University Avenue with the punch cards. And in my arrogant grad student way, I had better things to do, I thought, but hey, expectant fathers who are penny poor can't be complainers. So I said yes to this pedestrian project with no theory, I said at the time. And I spent my third year of graduate school solvent but more pressured than ever. I was doing Bob's project for our baby's sake. I was pursuing my own dissertation on the theory, the theory of foreign direct investment. And I emphasized that to show how stupid I was and you'll hear more stupidity to come. And learning reluctantly how to be a father. I think Bob, in his cunning way, knew far better than I what I was cut out for professionally. And I think Bob kind of welcomed this change in life for me and my wife as an opportunity to set me more on the right path. This massive big data project in the days before there were big data projects actually suited my talents as Bob saw them. He had the skill, I think, of seeing that very well. So imagine Bob's consternation one year after our conversation at the beginning of my fourth year when it begins by my walking in with a finished final project report. And I told him I was eternally grateful for the family support that he'd offered me for the child support. And now in my fourth year, I had to get to work on my dissertation. So as to be proud of myself and that he would be proud of me. So Bob took the project report the beginning of my fourth year, spent two weeks going over it, called me back in and said something like the following. This is really fine work, masterful. Would you consider using it as your doctoral dissertation? Sure, I thought that I don't wanna be known for this. I know I thought that. And I said, no, I don't think so, Bob, but thank you so much. It really was so pedestrian. I really appreciate it, thanks. Picture, Bob, flabbergasted. He just offered a dissertation to someone who turned it down. Speechless, Bob was speechless. He just sat there. He was completely perplexed. Never expressed any anger. He's parted. I went home and my wife, who found Bob's turn to be one of the few gentlemen among male economists that she knew at that time and ever since. My wife said, what did you say? What did you say to Bob? You turned Bob down? What? And the end of the story is that arrogant graduate student reconsidered his arrogance. And I accepted Bob's judgment. That was the most important thing. And I accepted Bob's offer. And that baby birth project led to three high quality publications. And my vaunted, exalted theory of foreign direct investment led to much lower quality publications. They both led to publications. And the great moral of that story, as I see it, is that Bob Stern cared deeply, deeply for his students at the same time as he cared deeply, deeply for important professional creativity. And to have both of those things in the same man as a graduate student is not just rare, but it's miraculous and marvelous. And to this day, I am eternally thankful for Bob's overruling support and judgment in my own career. Next, I want to read you something that another student of Bob's sent in. This is from Peter DeBear. He got his PhD in 1998. And he's now an associate professor at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. And as you'll see, he's been close to Bob in various ways. So this is what he said. It was mid-January and I received a parcel of books from Bob. And he's talked about this year. On my last visit, we had been talking about how I might edit a book on the economics of water. And Bob sent me a few samples of the many books he had edited. He probably had been cleaning out his shelves. It was the last installment in a generous stream of advice and suggestions that started when I met Bob in 1994 during my second year of my PhD studies in Ann Arbor. Over the years, his messages had ranged from articles he'd read to documentaries he'd seen, one of his favorite documentaries was Looking for Sugar Man, a DVD about the Detroit singer who unbeknownst to himself had become a rock star in South Africa during the times of anti-apartheid embargo that had isolated the country from the rest of the world. I remember that. I might even have seen it with Bob, perhaps. International trade indeed, Peter says, was always lurking around the corner. When I learned of Bob's passing, I did not quite know what to do. So I went online and Googled his name. I came across his essay, My Studies in International Economics. Some of you may have seen that. It is, as you would expect, knowing Bob, very much no nonsense and unsentimental. It did contain a few things that I had forgotten or may never have known. Bob actually did not start out as an economist. At Berkeley, his first academic steps were in studying languages, Spanish in particular. Before embarking on a PhD, he also obtained an MBA from Chicago. I must have known that, but I didn't remember it, with a focus on accounting. This, together with his experience, working as a civilian auditor in occupied Japan. Really? Maybe this was fiction. As he wrote himself, built or established his phenomenal organizational skills. These account for an endless list of workshops, conferences, and symposia with his signature, and that I certainly do know. Those same skills also made it possible that he, barely able to walk, would still travel the world until a few years ago. They also made him move around effortlessly from his blue house in Oakland to the Jewish movie club in Berkeley that he attended on a weekly basis, or to the United Artists Cinema in Shattuck, the bistro liaison, the Trattoria Corso, and the coffee houses, where he would meet during, by visiting UC Berkeley in the spring of 2012. In the essay, I also learned about Bob's father's involvement in the meatpacking business, and how visiting slaughterhouses while supplying, while studying at Chicago, convinced them that he'd have to do nothing to do with meatpacking, and pursue a career in academia. This rang true. Bob had an intense distaste for things loud and violent, which I always associated with what characterized him best. In a world of decibels and exclamation marks, he was soft-spoken and made noise without raising his voice, but with the generosity of his mind and the hospitality of his home. We will miss him. Peter. Push the button here. Uh-oh. I'm not able to move forward. Well, that does it. Can you go to the next one then? There we go. As long as you're there, why don't you click on them? Here's a video from three of Bob's students. He has many more in Seoul, Korea, but three of them were able to get together. Hello, hello. My name is Lou Che. I graduated from the University of Michigan in 1990, specialized in international trade. Even though I was not taught by him, he continued to give me various helpful advices in the seminar class before I graduated there. So I was so sad to hear about his death, and I mourn with my whole heart his death and I'd like to offer very sincere condolences to his family and to Professor Jo Jo, who must be one of the closest colleagues. Thank you. Hi, Alan, and all my friends. My name is Cho Chung. I graduated in 2002. Bob was a traffic researcher and teacher, and excellent person. I remember one day in 1997 when I was taking his seminar class. It was his moving day, and that day, Michigan football team beat 10 states, 37 to nothing, and eventually went on to win the national championship. My memory about Bob is like that. It's very fun and pleasant. He has been always nice, and I miss him a lot, and my heart is with you. Hello, my name is Bo Buk-Gung Tan. I graduated, and now I'm teaching at the Seoul National University Graduate School of Intentious Studies. When I was a PhD student there, we were immensely benefited by academic leadership of Professor Stern. He and Professor Dildo organized an amazing internal conference for Intentious Studies. Every year at the time, by inviting numerous non-discovers. So we could always keep abreast of the frontier knowledge and insights of the field. Later, he published all those academic outcomes in the book. Now, my student, so his graduate student, are learning from those books, so we are very grateful to his second leadership. Actually, I'm publishing a book under a word, scientific publishing. He recently launched. I was planning to send the first copy to him for thanking him for all those help and assistance. I was very impressed for thanking him for all those help and assistance through online academic career. So I feel very sorry for losing that chance. So instead, I'm sending this message to him as well as his family and friends. Thank you. Okay. Barbara Bach. I'm sorry. I should have let everybody know the order of things. I have it here, but I don't divulge it. A little extemporaneous. I'm Barbara Bach. I've been a family friend since 1968 when I moved here. So I don't bring the academic credentials nor the language. I'm so sorry. But I do want to just bring a little bit of my remembrances as the family man. I would say for about 20 years as a single parent, both the Stearns and myself shared Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and Christmas breakfast. And one of the special memories I have are some young people behind Carolyn doing charades at a very young age with a lot of vocabulary understanding. I'm sure it was because they lived in the Stearn family or they were associated with the Stearn family. The other one is the wonderful picture I have of Bob in Wellfleet. And I don't remember whether it was a rocking chair or it was just a special chair. And there were papers. And the papers were theses and conference papers. And Lucetta and I would play tennis and come home and he was happy as a clam. Well, no, not a clam. He looked very happy in the position of reading a lot of wonderful economic dissertations and things. The other and the last one, of course, is that wonderful picture with the white beard and the white hair. He was Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and the best Santa Claus of all. Thank you. He's going to read something that Bob Baldwin said. A portion of what Bob said at the Fest Drift conference that was held in honor of Bob. Some years ago, you probably know. In 1997. And this portrait of Bob Stern by Bob Baldwin is both accurate and shows you, I think, Bob Stern's uniqueness in the profession. So this is all Bob Baldwin's voice. To begin, let me express what a happy and joyous occasion this is. 1997. The Fest Drift volume. It's published, by the way, in that volume. We've come together to honor Bob Stern, not just an economist, but as a friend. Many of the individuals who gain fame in the professional fields are often not the most admirable individuals on the personal level. Gaining fame is not an easy task, and many individuals who succeed are rather self-centered in the sense of letting others know how frequently, how important and original their own writings are in winning the race to fame. With Bob Stern, we have a completely different picture. Here's a person who's gained fame as an economist, but at the same time is warmly admired as a person. I remember that Leondief always felt that one of the highest forms of praise he could give anyone was to say that he was a straight shooter. To my mind, this description fits Bob very well. When Bob tells you what he thinks about some idea or some person, you know that's what he's telling everyone. He doesn't play games in order to make a point or to put someone down, nor does he try to elicit some remark about how great a scholar he is. You also know that your friendship with Bob is not something he's going to use for some self-serving purpose or just as a way of meeting other people who can be beneficial to his career. It's a friendship you can count on for life. Now, let me move away from Bob's accomplishments. There's two pages of accomplishments in here. Through his writings and discuss another important feature of his career, namely his ability to attract an extraordinarily talented group of graduate students. He's done this consistently over 30 years and how extraordinary this accomplishment is. He thinks that Jagdish Bagwati is the only rival to Bob Stern. I, Bob Baldwin, have always been rather envious of Bob on this point. Dave Richardson and I have had a number of good students who've gone on to distinguish academic careers, but nothing like Bob has had. My claim to fame in terms of producing other economists has been achieved the old-fashioned way through procreation and arranging marriages. A lot of Baldwin's kids are economists and married to economists. I began to think about just how Bob Stern might have succeeded at this remarkable field. Maybe he gets those good students because he's so kind and considerate to them, and thus they become attached to him in his field. He has a kind of friendly, grandfatherly quality. Perhaps he invites them over to their house and serves up one of his nice buffets and lets Lucetta talk to them and ease their personal problems. Well, maybe. Still another hypothesis I thought about is that perhaps he charms them with his unique personality. Oh, perhaps. What is the secret of attracting so many top-notch graduate students? Well, after talking to several of them, I think I figured it out. Bob has followed what I would call a big-time football model. He must have become familiar with it. Over the many years he had at Michigan, coaches go out and recruit their players. And that's what Bob seems to do. He identifies the top graduate students, not just those who have wandered into trade, but those in other fields. Ed Leamer was recruited. How has successful recruitment done? Well, first of all, you've got to have some scholarships to attract your recruits. And this is where the Stern-Dierdorf Research Department... Bob is not an envious man, by the way, making these comments, but he was envious at this point. Comes into play. Those two guys, Stern and Dierdorf, have used Bob's MBA knowledge to put together a highly efficient, smooth research operation that must be the envy of many private research firms. They put out first-rate research proposals. I know this from personal experience and competing against them. And they found places to tap for research funds that I haven't even heard about. Bob Baldwin would be embarrassed at my theatrical rendering, but I'm just reading the words here. But successful recruiting is much more than having attractive scholarship. A key question in the mind of a recruit is whether the particular team he joins will be useful in helping him to get into the pros after he or she completes his or her college career. And Bob Stern is especially helpful on that point. And he goes on to illustrate. None of the rest of us has come close to operating such an organization as the Michigan Research Machine. So I hope I have reminded you of some of the many ways in which Bob Stern is an extraordinary individual. His administrative ability, his unflap ability, his ability to persuade you to present a paper at one of his conferences, even though you're already over-committed. I must say how wonderful it is to know Bob and to wish him and Lucetta continued success and happiness in the rest of their professional careers and personal lives. That reminds me of another feature of my collaboration with Bob over the years, which is quite often others would give credit to Dear Dorf and Stern as though we had done them things equally. But in many cases, that wasn't true, and it certainly wasn't true here. I never got a grant in my life. I never even tried. Bob is always the one that raised the money. Always. I wouldn't know how. And thank goodness I didn't have to. Okay, next, I see I neglected once again to advance this, but the next one is a video from Keith Maskus. I didn't do this to the others, and I apologize for that, but I better let you know what's coming. A video from Keith Maskus, then Marina, there you are. You're going to speak a little bit. Then I'm going to read some remarks from Bernard Hochman, and then we got a video from Rajesh Chata and his family. And the final speaker, before we open it up, is Robert Peich, which, there you are. Okay, I knew you came in. Yeah. Good. Okay, so here we have Keith Maskus, which he thinks I'm not going to manage it, but I'll bet I can. What do you want? Oh, but you're going to do it. Hi, everybody. This is Keith Maskus out in Boulder, Colorado. Sorry I can't be there to join you, and I'll thank and remember Bob Stern and all that he did for all of us. I'd just like to spend a few minutes telling a couple of stories and then finishing up. Bob was instrumental in my whole decision to study international trade. I actually went to Michigan many, many years ago to become a development economist. That didn't really take for me, but looking around, I saw this guy, Bob Stern, who was traveling around the world all the time, and that really was attractive to me. So I started talking to him about this kind of a career, and he rewarded me with a pretty tedious research assistantship, but it was worth doing finding all of that data in the library and putting it all under punch cards because that turned out to be my first strong publication joined with Bob way back in 1981. It really got me started on my career. And Bob also was really good about motivation. He gave me some gentle motivation to finish my dissertation a few years into my time at Michigan when I told him that my undergraduate college, which I really didn't want to go back and teach at, was offering me a job before I finished, and his answer was, well, you could do worse. So I thought I'd better try to get on with my dissertation at that time. Let me just mention a few characteristics Bob had that I thought were really fantastic. One was his incredible set of connections and his ability to get famous and interesting people to come down, and talk. I was always blown away by these people he'd get from Washington, USTR, commerce, and everyone else, in addition to all of the famous trade economists. That to me was a real attraction to studying international trade. And an ability that he had to write insightful papers at the last minute convincing me that maybe I didn't have to do everything right on time. Bob had a mysterious but unfailing intuition about which students would do well at which tasks, and I think we all benefited from that very much. He had a real dedication to getting the work of his students circulated and presented to help launch their careers. I was certainly a very direct beneficiary that presented my work at the Bureau and at the AEA meetings and many other places. He had an unfailing commitment throughout his professional life to engage in new subjects and encourage others to think and write about additional things, new areas, and of course along with Allen really built a program in international trade at Michigan which was very, very innovative and important. So I think Bob's got a lasting legacy his students and grand students including some of my own students who are very well established in the profession. They're everywhere. They're making big impacts. And it's really amazing to think about how many successful trade and development economists went through Michigan or others who had been earlier through Michigan with his direct or indirect guidance. So as I said for me personally there are several of my own students who are now quite successful, using techniques that Bob or Allen or both put together and we tried to popularize. So definitely a lasting legacy. Let me just finish by saying I am personally honored that I've been asked by World Scientific to continue Bob's work as editor of their series in international economics. I'm looking forward to doing that and keeping Bob's fantastic program going there. So finally let me just give you my best wishes to all of Bob's family and friends there and colleagues in Ann Arbor. He will be missed not only there but around the world. So thank you and good luck on the remembrance. The World Scientific Company as soon as I almost as soon as I heard about Bob's death I contacted them I know them and told them about it and they were of course very unhappy to hear it. So they sent along a couple of slides. This one is the most important one just conveying their sympathy but backing up there's an example of some of the books he has edited as a series editor I don't know I think several dozen of these volumes through World Scientific and it's really playing quite a role. Okay. Marina. I first met Bob Stern somewhere between 40 and 50 years ago when I was teaching at the University of Pittsburgh and Bob invited me as a young economist and an even more junior colleague of mine to come and give a paper in his seminar and I have no recollection of what the paper was about but I do remember two things from that seminar. One was that it was in the old economics building which I think burned down shortly thereafter and it had been Bob's seminar was in the basement and it had been raining quite hard for the preceding few days and I remember that my feet got very wet because the building leaked so badly. I know that a lot of people lost valuable work in that fire but I must say as far as the building was concerned possibly its time had come and the other thing I remember is thinking what a terrific guy this Bob Stern was and I hope that sometime I could be as effective a teacher particularly in that kind of socratic method that one uses in his seminar as he was and I'm not sure that I ever quite made it but it was a nice goal to aim at and one way I have emulated Bob is that like him I just couldn't seem to get the hang of retirement and I've gone on teaching long after any sensible person would have retired I don't know if I'll ever quite match Bob's record but I certainly have followed in his footsteps in that respect I was never formally taught by Bob Stern I got my undergraduate degree at Harvard and my graduate degree at Columbia but in an informal sense he may have been my most important teacher because he wrote a book called the balance of payments he told me it actually was one of his less successful books well maybe so but that book absolutely revolutionized my approach to teaching international trade and finance and even beyond that when I became the chief economist of General Motors I forced my staff to do forecasting and analysis as if the United States were an open economy and not simply a closed one that wasn't enough to save General Motors from its ultimate fate because many of the very senior executives didn't really take to heart what I said but at least I tried and that was also due to the enlightenment that I got from Bob Stern all in all Bob Stern was in one person a quintessential teacher scholar and gentleman the world won't see his like again I'm convinced and it's with great sadness that I contemplate the fact that he's no longer with us okay I want to read you it's a short message from Bernard Hochman I think I just got it today from him hi Alan sorry I can't be there I'm afraid a video is not my cup of tea as you know Bob had a great impact on me I would not be where I am today if it had not been for him offering me an RA slot and it being conditional on switching into the PhD program I didn't know that really okay which was not my intention at all when I came to Ann Arbor I ended up working in a field that I disliked the most when I was studying economics in Rotterdam something that is completely due to him as he said at his best drift conference he liked to steer people in certain directions and that certainly applied to me he was a fantastic mentor I still remember getting my first essay back in the first class I took with him covered in a mass of red ink many of us have been there he had essentially rewritten it even though he gave me an A for it the red ink coverage ratio diminished over time as I learned to write which is something else that I owe to him another thing I learned from him was to look at data and get a good sense of orders of magnitude and the stylized facts something that I now find myself doing with students anyway many good memories best Bernard okay another video the last one actually we just this as I said came in within the last hour well now it's two hours and you'll hear who these people are good afternoon ladies and gentlemen I know that all of you have gathered in an hour to for the memorial meeting of Professor Robert Stern I wish I could have been there but I'm not able to I'm joining all of you and Bob's family both Caroline and Everett they are a message of condolence this message of condolence comes from the heart of a family Bob Stern was and Bob and Lusetta both were very attached to our family my relationship with Bob and Alan Dierdorf started in 1993 when Bob and Lusetta visited India for the first time when I met with them both of them were very nice to all of us and my family and in 1994 our professional relationship started when I visited Ann Arbor I am thankful to Professor Bob Stern and Lusetta for the love and affection that they gave to me while I was visiting Ann Arbor Professor Alan Dierdorf has also been my guide and mentor in the effort of creating a CGE model for India I am speaking partly on professional matter where both Professor Rob Stern and Professor Alan Dierdorf got together with us at the National Council of Applied Economic Research and together we wrote a model for India a computable general equilibrium model for India which is still being used still in use I am extremely thankful to you Professor Stern for giving us this opportunity of getting together and cooperating with us in making a National Council of Applied Economic Research a partner with University of Michigan a very fond memory is about Bob and Lusetta because during 1994 to 1999 or 2000 they visited us about 6 to 7 times and I also almost visited the same number of times both of them very fond of India and what an angelic smile on Bob's face you could always see we as a family have been very attached to Bob and Lusetta and hence we are very sorry and pain to know about this irreparable loss to the community of economists to the family of Bob, Bob Stern both Caroline and Everett so I would like to convey my sincere message of condolence and grant and pray to the God that the departed soul may rest in eternal peace my wife Sangita also joins me and my son Rajat who has been very friendly with both Bob and Lusetta would also like to say few words and Bob was very close to my daughter who would appear because we are not able to fit in the frame but Rajat if you have to say anything he can, please Lakshita Lakshita please come you can in one of the pictures in one of the pictures you can be displayed you can see Bob Stern holding Lakshita when she was just a year old when she was a kid and she is now grown up and she also joins us in conveying our message of condolence I have only I have only remembered whenever I met Uncle Bob he had a smile on his face always and I have fond memories of visiting Michigan with my dad and we had a great time and Aunt Posetta they were just like my uncle and aunt and I really miss him a lot I miss it both of them and of course I am very sad to know about Uncle Bob at the at the end once again I would like to convey my condolence to Caroline and Everett and I know how attached Professor Alan Dierdorf you were or you have been to Professor Robert Stern I know it's a painful time but I think we can all make the best out of it with a pledge that let's learn a lot from his professional and human qualities thank you very much thank you and in India as we say rest in peace it's kind of hard to be the last speaker I feel a little bit time pressure but anyway, I'm hoping that I don't take too much time so I'm also a former student of Bob's it was at the master's degree level however I first encountered Bob as an undergraduate student in an international economics and trade class with him and I say encountered as opposed to Matt because I think I didn't say a word in the class for the entire semester I didn't introduce my class myself I didn't ever go to his office hours so in retrospect I sort of regret that now but I made up for it when I became an Ips student later my first real meeting with him was in a graduate seminar class on trade policy and I'll never forget that class because there were only about 10 of us in it and I think Bernard might have been in there too I can't remember but it was a very small class the first day Bob walks in and says Bernard, somebody raised their hand with a question Professor Stern, he said, no, no, I'm Bob and that really floored me because in that undergraduate class he was Professor Stern so to suddenly have Bob in the room was quite interesting and the very second class he came in and invited us all to his house for dinner that night so before Lucetta had to order Rajarani I think or some kind of Indian food I don't think she was expecting us but he showed up with 10 students so in January of 1985 which was my final semester in Ips Bob asked me what I was going to do when I graduated and I said that I didn't know but in my head I was thinking well I'll probably go back to Washington DC I'll go to the Export-Import Bank which is where I had my internship or maybe I'll go to intelligence and research at the State Department because I was also focusing on Eastern Europe and the planned economies but he told me without my saying anything that he had a good opportunity for me or a good idea so I told Alan I wanted to speak because Bob got me my first job and he really did get me my first job so one of his former students from a few years earlier was a man by the name of Paul McGonagall he was a mid-career Foreign Service officer who had taken a break to do a master's degree here at Michigan under Bob I think he went back to the Foreign Service a year or two and then decided to take a job with the First National Bank of Chicago running their country risk management division I think that after the debt crisis and developing countries all banks decided that they needed to understand the countries where they were lending a lot better so Paul was in need of an Eastern European economist and he reached out to Bob immediately there were three of us at IPS who also were interested in Eastern Europe and studying Eastern Europe because Betty Simington, Michael Blackman and myself and I'm really proud that I remember their names because I haven't kept in touch but it shows how meaningful this was to me there were three of us Bob didn't discriminate he recommended all of us he encouraged all of us to apply I don't know if Betty and Michael applied because I think they really wanted to go into the government but you know Bob kept talking about how wonderful Chicago was I think because he had lived there for a while and had studied there and also really liked Chicago or at least that's the way they were talking at that time so I decided to apply and eventually I got the offer when I received the offer I realized that the salary was going to be twice as high as the export import salary in Washington so I decided to take the job so Bob did get me my first job and for that I'm forever grateful we lost touch for a few years while I was living first in Chicago and then later in Europe I spent 12 years in Europe working still for first Chicago which became J.P. Morgan Chase also the OECD and Banco Santander it was sort of still the pre-email time so it was harder to stay in touch with people and I don't know I didn't do a very good job but anyway we reconnected when I moved back to Ann Arbor in 2000 since then Bob had become a very close friend a colleague a collaborator and even a confinante we organized a conference together on the WTO which I think was pretty successful he offered me the opportunity to do some editing on those books that Alan showed earlier and we also worked on a World Bank funded consulting project to assess the economic impact of the WTO accession on the financial sector of Ethiopia what I admired most about Bob in the years that I knew him was his open-mindedness his creativity and problem-solving ability his fierce independence and his incredible work ethic I mean this guy was just working all the time and he enjoyed every minute of it too it wasn't hard for him ever or uncomfortable for him he just really had a smile on his face and I loved seeing that working at the University of Michigan has not always been easy for me I think I'm kind of a strange animal because I don't fit into the academic mold and I don't really fit into the administrative mold either Bob always encouraged me though not to worry about that and to keep on doing what I was doing and to do it as well as possible he always suggested that I do what I think is right for my programs and not to worry about the consequences does that sound familiar? I think academia needs more people like Bob Stern I'm thankful to have known him and to have had him as a friend and mentor okay that's all of the people who had told me in advance that they wanted to speak but I'd be happy to hear from anybody else who would like to say anything Chang you come up here so that you'll get thanks hi my name is Chong Xiang and I'm an economics professor at Purdue so I got my degree can you hear me in the back? so I got my degree from Michigan and my area is international trade now I did not take a class from Bob and Bob was not on my thesis committee still I learned a lot from from Bob and I benefited a lot from his presence as I explained below so when I started graduate school in 1997 a long time ago I did not know much about economics the economics papers I'd read counted using my two hands and I knew nothing about doing research then of course in my second year Bob and Alan hired me as the R.I.A. the research assistant a slave to work on building a model to forecast U.S. trade in services so I had weekly meetings with Bob and Alan and also with Sarah Hyman I learned a lot from those guys and economic research was no longer a mystery to me in addition Bob and Alan were very resourceful and they secured an office for me in the second floor of Lodgehall which was the home building of the economics department at that time well as it turns out that was a big boost to my self-esteem because all the other graduate students had their offices in the first floor so for the first time in my life I felt my future career would take a path like that later I heard that Bob had a tragic car accident which made it difficult for him to to walk to my great surprise I still saw him a lot around the department he would carry a walking stick and walking aid and he would take small steps and he would walk slowly and he would say hi and he would always smile no grimace, no frowning always that smile a sparrow that said he was happy and he enjoyed everything he had so this is the picture I have in my mind when I think about Bob when I close my eyes gray hair walking stick taking small steps and wearing the most genuine and warm smile on his face and he would always keep going always moving forward too happy too happy to stop so Caroline and Everett please accept my condolences when Bob passed he lost a great father and the economics profession lost a great pioneer but I assure you his legacy stays in our profession in me and in other formal students and colleagues he always leaves in our minds and in our hearts you may think being on the second floor isn't that big a deal but since the first floor would tend to flood even though we had a new building not new anyway sir you have something to say to your young fella I'm younger than you I know actually this is a pretty good room I'm younger than so I'm Paul Courant I was a friend of Bob's I never worked with Bob and although I knew that there was this machine that produced papers and books and that said Dear Dorf and Stern on them and indeed when Alan says he never raised any of his own money that is completely true Bob really did it all I just want to have a moment to remember how much fun he was really party fun there were great parties at the Sterns Lucetta of course was a spectacularly gifted dancer to all of rock and roll and Bob just enjoyed the scene and the laughter and people having a good time there was lots to drink lots to eat people smoked all kinds of things in those days and it was there were really good times that he enjoyed very much and I'm remembering some birthday party of his maybe 50 maybe 60 all of those young ages look young to me in which Lucetta produced a Venn Diagram anybody else remember this and it was boring interesting and then the intersection of boring and interesting was Bob and somehow that has stayed with me all these years I actually never found Bob to be that boring but you know he was the solid one compared to Lucetta for sure and anyhow that conveyed years of very good times and I just wanted people to remember that I want a sort of second policy remark I got to know Bob because I had the office across from him and because he and I had houses in Welford, Massachusetts and so at some point Lucetta said Mary why don't you invite us over to your house and I thought who is Lucetta but I turned out it was Bob's wife Bob I just when I think of Bob I think of Lucetta because the first thing I thought was there's this quiet person across the hall from me who seems to as Paul says accomplish a huge amount and I never quite I thought he must be rather boring you know it was my main feeling and then I had dinner with him and Lucetta and Lucetta was just a hot ticket she is the funniest one my kids who are there who are saying we have to go out to dinner with people who are even older than you and I said yes to the justers I remember you were there and Bob and Lucetta and I came back and I said we love Lucetta Lucetta used rather salty language and expressed her opinions quite bluntly and I said this woman is cool mom and then we got to know Bob and Lucetta and we we realized every time we went to Japanese movies they were there every time we went to something sort of risque movie wise they were there Lucetta told us by the way the story about the butcher Bob's father was a butcher he went to get his MBA so he could go back to Chicago so he'd back and be a butcher my story was a little different than the one someone else gave Lucetta said I told him I wouldn't marry him if he became a butcher and so I think we had Lucetta to thank for this but Bob they just knew how to have fun every time there was a dance party at the Ford school they were there every time Bob they invited us over to their house to see some movies they were always movies I never would have thought of seeing or never had even heard of and I remember them very fondly and I don't know if Carolyn remembers it seems like every time Bob and Lucetta invited me for something about every other time I arrived the day afterwards and they always invited me in and we spent the evening together even though I was using the leftovers and if I I don't know many people who would be that forgiving but they did the same to me who else want to say a word or two and old enough to know no I'm not I only arrived at Michigan last year and so I I got to know Bob when I arrived at the university 18 years ago and I always found him a lot of fun I'm not sure whether he was retired at that point and I'm not sure how one would know actually whether he was emeritus at that point but he was always around and he was always a lot of fun we saw these former students of Bob's who clearly very devoted to him he was no less devoted to his students and I knew that because there was a period of time when I was director of the Ph.D. program in the economics department this is about 15 years ago 9-11 came along during that period and right after 9-11 people forget this now the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service issued an edict that was basically kicking out of the country non-U.S. citizen Ph.D. students who were beyond a certain number of years in the program and the director of the Ph.D. program had to be involved and anyway it was a complicated mess at Michigan we tried not to do that if a student was making progress toward the degree we didn't want them not to get the degree but we have a very large program and there were some students who basically ran a foul of this new edict one of whom was a student of Bob's that Bob had recruited to the university and he was very upset that it was necessary to basically exceed to what the INS was insisting on and I was involved and Bob let me know that he didn't think I was doing it right maybe some of you have had this experience with Bob that was the first time I had had that experience with him and anyway nonetheless we had to do it that was 14 years ago the student went on and left the university without the Ph.D. wound up getting a Ph.D. somewhere else I knew that because Bob sent me a digital image of the person's Ph.D. degree and then Bob a copy of every article that student has published and wouldn't you know this guy's actually published a bunch of articles and so I have been getting two or three articles a year from Bob that were reprints of the articles that this one-time student of his at Michigan and I know that Bob's passed away now because I haven't gotten an article in a short period of time but students are devoted to you to the students and it's really clear he was that kind of guy anybody else except possibly for Marina here I'm the only guy as I know from the business school across the street and when I came on the faculty in the fall of 67 actually physically 68 I learned slowly that this was not only Tappan Street that's separated the two buildings but deep-seated let's say ideological differences are not new they were there very alive at the time but I was unaffected by all of this and the econ department and Alan and Bob needed an outside person to serve with them on the Ph.D. programs and so I had the pleasure and the privilege of doing probably about 12 to 15 presentations as the outside member and I must say I learned an awful lot from Bob and this came through the presentations and I just repeated here his unique capability of being the nicest guy possible and yet being very distinct and hard on the facts on the content that taught me a lesson that served me well for the rest of overall in my career I was involved in 55 dissertations either as chair or as part of the memory and sometimes I still read the famous students that I had the pleasure of reading their dissertations and working with Alan and other people were at that time so it was a very personal thing that I was one of the few people before we in the business school hired professional economists who had a good relationship with the Econ department and I went to Bob's conferences and enriched my career here at Michigan substantially so I can only chime in what other people said he's a great man and has affected my career and my life very much, thank you very much I see that it is 5.30 so maybe we should I suspect there's probably more that would like to speak but I suggest we stop now and those who wish, please go outside there's I believe some refreshments waiting for you out there and we can continue the conversation as I said at the start after that a little bit anybody who wants to join me and others at the gourmet garden restaurant for dinner is welcome to do so