Loving economics

You might imagine that it would take an extraordinary person to inspire someone to study economics back when, as Chris Irvin notes, “no one studied econ in 1969.”

But Irvin had met an economist before college who inspired him. “Dr. James Gillies had such a wide area of things he did. He served as my adult mentor in so many things, and even taught me how to play bridge. There was also a priest, in college, who was applying economics to a lot of things,”he said.

A self-described “renaissance man,” Irvin says people might be surprised to know that he speaks Chinese and a bit of German and Swedish. Learning “three years’ worth of Chinese in 14 months” is what Irvin cites as his greatest challenge.

He began studying the economy in China for his Ph.D., which he earned from the University of Michigan in 1982. In the process, he co-authored a paper with Szechaun representatives exploring how “rural small-scale industries were revitalizing the Chinese economy as more farmers left their traditional roles.”

“Over time, they converted their traditional agriculture to multi-cropping, using the same land four-fifths of the year,” he said. “Seasonally supplied labor moved out of the traditional farm and became the new model for working almost all year.”

He learned the Chinese language in a short period of time out of necessaity. “When I was writing my Ph.D. dissertation, the only papers available at the time were CIA translations. I didn’t want to depend on them, so with the help of a scholarship from the Mellon Foundation, I learned Chinese and then went there to study more,” he said.

Irvin says his hidden talent is walking on his hands. “I was a gymnast in high school and gave it up for a while. But I got back into it, and I can hold a handstand for a few minutes and walk back and forth across a gym floor. I do it now as a party trick,”he said.

He can point to two incidents he calls turning points in his life. First, leaving a position as an economics professor on the East Coast to move to the Bay Area, where he took a position managing money. Second, “My marriage (to Dorian Bartley, bassist for the musical trio the Artifacts).”

Regarding whether there is any one thing Irvin would change about the world, he keeps it brief and to the point, “No more war!” His goals are “to finish paying for the kids’ college, pay off the house and limit work time as I move toward retirement.”

He expands on that sentiment as a part of his advice to others when he says, “Keep your life simple and easy to manage. Keep work fun, but limit the time it takes up in your life. Don’t wait for retirement to take that trip or buy that thing you’ve always wanted. Try to retire a bit every day; insert a little piece of retirement heaven in your life.”

(Contact Lynn Schnitzer at argus@arguscourier.com)