893 Doing a Master“s

Lu Zhou occasionally communicated with some economics scholars during his time at Princeton, but he wasn’t familiar with most of the economics department at Princeton.

It wasn’t like he could remember everyone’s name?

Not to mention, Princeton was a huge school, and since he only stayed there for a few years, it was likely that he never interacted with this person before.

Lu Zhou tried to remember if he had ever talked with this person, but he couldn’t remember anything. Thus, he decided to go online and search for this person’s academic background.

It turned out this guy was quite a big name.

Krugman!

2008 Nobel Prize in Economics laureate!

Expert in international trade, exchange rate, and macroeconomics!

His most glorious academic achievement was his 1994 successful prediction of the Asian financial crisis, which happened in 1997. This prediction became wildly popular in various fields of economics after the Asian financial crisis, which led to him winning the Nobel Prize in 2008.

Lu Zhou felt strange why this guy was emailing him.

The subject of the email was asking if Lu Zhou had any time to talk about some academic topics.

Even though Lu Zhou wasn’t interested in economics, after pondering for a while, he wrote a reply.

[I’m available at 8 pm tonight, Beijing time. We can chat then if you like.]

After all, he had to give some respect to a Nobel Prize scholar.

It wasn’t like he had anything else to do anyway…

…

8 pm at night.

Krugman’s face appeared in the video call.

The professor skipped through the small talk and self-introduction. The second the call was connected, he spoke aggressively.

“You have no idea how important your research is!”

Lu Zhou was a little startled, and he said, “I’m not sure which research you’re talking about… Can you be more specific?”

Krugman took a deep breath and explained.

“The Bewley model is on the cutting edge of macroeconomics… Your improved model… I’ll call it the Lu-Bewley model for the time being. Not only does it reduce the cumbersome calculations, but it also reduced the random error of the model!”

Bewley model?

Oh, he’s talking about Xiao Tong’s thesis…

After hearing Professor Krugman’s explanation, Lu Zhou had a look of realization on his face.

However, he wasn’t nearly as excited as Professor Krugman.

Seeing how Lu Zhou didn’t respond, Professor Krugman thought that Lu Zhou didn’t know what was going on. Thus, Krugman cleared his throat and continued, “Let’s put it this way, putting aside the complicated models, there are two goals of economics—one is to optimize the efficiency of resource allocation and the other is to coordinate all of the interests of society! If we have an accurate model, or even an approximation, we can maximize the efficiency of resource allocation! We can even predict future economic activities!”

Lu Zhou finally had a reaction. He leaned back on his chair and said, “Sounds quite impressive.”

Lu Zhou smiled and looked at Professor Krugman through the screen as he said, “I don’t know a lot about economics, but when it comes to chaotic systems… it seems like there has never been a 100% accurate mathematical model. For example, how can you predict the invention of controllable fusion technology? How can it predict its impact on the global economy?”

“I can’t answer that, but it’s not the main point.” Krugman shook his head and said, “I can tell you that technological advancements are correlated to research and development funding, GDP ratios, etc. These parameters are included in the model. Regardless, this is a Nobel Prize level research! If you continue to perfect the Bewley model, the next Nobel Prize in economics is yours!”

“But… I already won the Fields Medal,” Lu Zhou shrugged and said, “and a Nobel Prize.”

The atmosphere in the video call became a little awkward.

Professor Krugman coughed and spoke.

“You don’t want another? This is a Nobel Prize…”

“Nobel Prizes just aren’t that attractive for me.” Lu Zhou sighed and said, “You know what? Opposed to the meaningless awards, I’m more interested in the problem itself. Do you know what I’m saying, Professor Krugman?”

“…”

Krugman didn’t want to say anything.

He wanted to throw his laptop out of the window.

This stupid millennial was telling him that the Nobel Prize was meaningless!

This is infuriating!

He took a deep breath and tried to persuade him.

“Is the Bewley model not interesting enough? This is an important problem! I can guarantee you that it will change the world more than any pure mathematics research—”

“Maybe not,” Lu Zhou interrupted Krugman. He then said, “Plus, the improved version of the Bewley model… Or as you call it, the Lu Bewley model, only took me an hour to do. It doesn’t seem difficult or interesting at all.”

One hour…

Krugman froze.

His instincts told him that this was impossible, but the person on his screen didn’t seem like he was joking or lying.

Why would he lie?

But spending just an hour to perfect the Bewley model…

That’s unbelievable!

“Okay then,” Lu Zhou said. Seeing how Professor Krugman was speechless, Lu Zhou looked at his watch and yawned. “My apologies, but I can’t help you. There are many excellent mathematics professors at Princeton. Maybe you can bring my model to them and ask for help.

“Goodbye.”

The video call ended.

Krugman stared at the black screen and stayed motionless for a long time. His fingers trembled as he took off his glasses.

His student, who sat beside him watching the whole thing unfold, suddenly murmured, “Professor?”

Krugman sighed and shook his head.

“I have to think of another way.”

There were many excellent mathematics professors at Princeton, but most of them weren’t interested in economics, especially those in theoretical research. They looked down upon those in applied disciplines and thought economics was a waste of time.

But now, a world-renowned scholar had done some research in economics, so Krugman wasn’t going to give up.

Krugman began to think, and he suddenly had an idea.

He suddenly remembered that there was another author on the thesis.

Not Forster.

He had never heard of Forster before, and he thought Forster was probably some guy that stepped on sh*t.

But the second author…

Krugman’s eyes lit up as he looked at his student and immediately spoke.

“Wisl!”

Wisl immediately responded, “Here… What do you need?”

“Write an email for me; I’ll give you the address later. The recipient’s name is Lu Xiao Tong…” Krugman paused for a second and muttered to himself, “If everything goes well, we should have enough time.”

Even though Krugman spoke quietly, Wisl still heard the last sentence.

He paused for a second and spoke.

“Enough time for what?”

Krugman paused for a second and said, “Remember that paper I showed you? The groundbreaking side is the mathematics component, but the economics theory was also well done. Being able to make a mathematician do economics research is a rare quality in and of itself… If I’m correct, she hasn’t decided on where to go for a PhD!”

Wisl paused for a second and proposed a scenario.

“But what if she doesn’t want to continue in academia?”

Krugman replied, “Impossible!

“Having written such an excellent thesis, there’s no way she isn’t going into academia! There’s no reason for her to write such a good paper just for her master’s!

“Just write the email.”

“Okay…” Wisl looked at his boss and nodded. He opened his computer and began typing.

This PhD student in his thirties couldn’t help but think.

Every graduation season, people are begging for recommendation letters, digging their brains out trying to get a good PhD supervisor. But this chick, forget about recommendation letters; she has a Nobel Prize laureate begging for her…

Who is she?

This was the first time Wisl heard something like this happen.

Wisl thought back to his initial years in academia, and he felt a sense of distaste in his mouth…

Goddamn!

I’m so f*cking jealous!

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