“Kevin answers, I explain, he starts talking me through it. On the whole, I had done quite well. But before long Kevin mentions a few subtle aspects of the problem that I hadn’t seen. As we talk, I’m thinking, ‘Good old Kevin.’ I imagine him sitting at his kitchen table, pencil in hand, scribbling equations on a napkin. He’s dropped everything to help me with my problem, and in 10 minutes he’s explaining aspects of it to me that I would never have seen. Then I hear a splash, and a squeal, then another splash, and it dawns on me: There’s no pencil, no paper. Kevin’s holding the phone to his left ear with his shoulder while he’s giving his kid a bath. Kevin is far and away the smartest guy in the field. Often, the better you get to know these guys, the less ingenious they seem. It’s just the opposite with Kevin. Not only is he widely regarded as the smartest economist on earth, but he can also fix your refrigerator.”

the smartest economist

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