Student and Colleague to a Genius

JEFF DEIST: How does a kid from New Jersey get interested in economics, much less decide to get a PhD?

JOE SALERNO: Well, I didn’t really plan it. I think it all began back in fifth grade when my mother’s cousin visited from Italy, and during the course of conversation, he revealed that he was a member of the Italian Communist Party. My father, a New Deal Democrat who had voted for JFK, was also an ardent anti-communist. He got into a big argument with the cousin and then threatened to throw...