Abstract

No short tribute can do justice to the many contributions made by Richard 1974 to the field of economics, and social science more generally. This short piece provides an overview of how his creative mind—combining demography and economics—made a paradigm shifting contribution to the field; most importantly by reintroducing homo-sapiens and quality of life into economic analysis. While initially his work was at the margin, it has since become front and center and yielded a whole new sub-field in economics and inspired a wide range of scholars. The paper also discusses Richard Easterlin the persona, and his role in inspiring and mentoring a large number of rising scholars.