On Thursday, hundreds of economists will return to the University of Chicago to celebrate Gary Becker's contributions.   I have not been back to UC for a year now but I'm looking forward to seeing my old friends, and the Department's new building.  

I was a student at the University of Chicago from 1988 to 1993.  21 years is a long time and I barely remember my time there.  I remember meeting my future wife and trying to write a thesis.  With the exception of Jim Heckman's class and Gary's Econ 301 lectures, I really have no memory of the coursework.   I do remember the intensity of the place and the talented students were attracted to study there.  In no particular order, my entering class in the fall of 1988 produced;

Alberto Bisin of NYU
Ed Glaeser of Harvard
Phil Strahan of Boston College
Bernadette Minton of Ohio State
Ethan Ligon of UC Berkeley
Kahn  of UCLA
Erzo Luttmer of the University of Minnesota
Hedi Kallal  (who started at NYU)
Rick Flyer (who started at NYU)

An ambitious department who hired this subset of the U Chicago class of 1988 would be in very good shape in the REPEC rankings!

The impressive feature of the new University of Chicago Economics is the close proximity between the business school and the Econ Department.  This should lead to great new research.  An issue that every business school faces is that with their small Ph.D. class size, the senior faculty tend to begin to do less research and focus on "real world" issues (i.e consulting).   Whether the "center of gravity" of Chicago Economics will be at the Econ Department or at the Booth School is an interesting question and this competition should make the overall research community stronger.