Money and Markets: Essays in Honor of Leland B. Yeager

36 James M. BuchananNonetheless, some imputation can be tried, and primary responsibility can beassigned for particular choices. The discovery, recruitment, and appointment ofLeland Yeager was my own affair, almost exclusively. But neither Warren Nutternor I could claim sponsorship for Alexandre Kafka, the second major addition tothe new faculty. Kafka was, almost literally, appointed by Gottfried Haberler.Along with Warren Nutter, I felt myself to be little more than an acquiescor in theHaberler campaign to insure that Kafka secure appointment to the Virginiafaculty. We, along with others in the faculty and administration, were bombardedwith telephone calls, letters, and personal chats, both directly from Haberler andothers, seldom if at all from Kafka himself. Kafka’s credentials were passable, andwith Mikesell’s resignation, we did need strength in international economics. And,as it turned out, this essentially “external” appointment was highly productive forour program. Kafka gave us an entree into academic and quasi-academic (forexample, the international agencies) circles that we could never have attained.And, let us now admit that his Central European manners added a bit of charm andgrace to our brash disturbance of the tranquility of Mr. Jefferson’s lawn.Ronald H. Coase was the third major addition to our faculty at Virginia. AndWarren Nutter deserves full credit for the discovery, recruitment, and appointmentof Coase. Warren had participated, perhaps in the summer of 1957, in one of thelong conferences sponsored by the William Volker Fund. Coase was one of thethree main speakers at the conference, convened, I think, at Chapel Hill. WarrenNutter returned to Charlottesville mightily impressed with Coase, and heimmediately commenced to examine the prospects of prying Coase away from theUniversity of Buffalo, which had been his academic home since his migration fromLondon some years before. After lengthy, and sometimes tortuous negotiations, thedeal was made, and, after a full year’s delay, Coase shifted to Charlottesville.With the additions of Yeager, Kafka, and Coase, the senior staff was basically inplace. Junior appointments were made, including, importantly, Andrew Whinston,one of the best colleagues with whom I personally have worked. We also addedJames Ferguson, a protégé and self-appointed Stigler clone, who kept us alert toChicago-style bumptiousness. And a bit later we appointed John Moes, aDutchman with a Berkeley degree, who was more helpful to me, as departmentalchair with necessary chores, than almost anyone on the faculty. Unfortunately,Moes got at cross-purposes with Coase early on, with the result that he was notmoved along a tenure track.To this point in the narrative of the construction process I have not mentionedGordon Tullock, who many will associate directly with the whole Virginia enterprise,and properly so. But Tullock enters the story only with the complementarynarrative to be discussed in the following section.The Thomas Jefferson Center for Studies in PoliticalEconomy and Social PhilosophyAs we had discussed ten years before, both Warren Nutter and I felt that somethingmore than the appointment of good faculty members within an ongoing program