PROFESSOR ARMEN ALCHIAN was born on April 12, 1914 in Fresno, California. His parents were natives of Erzerum, historic Armenian Karin, and Fresno. In 1932 he enrolled at Fresno State College and transferred to Stanford in 1934, where he received his B.A. in 1936 his Ph.D. in 1943, with a dissertation titled "The Effects of Changes in the General Wage Structure." In 1940-41 he was at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Harvard University. From 1942 to 1945, he served in the U.S. Army Air Force as a statistical specialist. He arrived at UCLA in 1946, becoming associated at the same time with the RAND Corporation, and was promoted to full professor in 1958. He has received numerous awards and honors over the years and in 1996 was selected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association.

Professor Alchian is widely known to his students and colleagues as the founder of the "UCLA tradition" in economics, a tradition that continues to this day. It emphasizes that individual behavior is self-seeking and "rational" and that this has many unanticipated consequences. The tradition recog-nizes that "rationality" is the outcome of evolution and learning and emphasizes the frictions such as uncertainty that act as brakes on the individual's ability to make decisions and coordinate with others.

Above all, Alchian is noted for the impact he has had on generations of UCLA graduate students, in no small measure through his first year course in micro-economics. Among his many well-known students is William Sharpe, who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1990 for his work on finance.

The legacy of Professor Armen Alchian is truly enduring.