Tragedy amid triumph
This remarkable research activity and intensive engagement with policy
issues played out against the backdrop of another personal tragedy, his son
Ofair’s death in 1996 at the young age of 30 after a courageous battle with
progressive multiple sclerosis. Displaying his father’s tenacity, Ofair had
managed in the days before his death to complete his PhD dissertation in
economics at Georgetown University. Razin says he cried during entire long
plane journey to Washington, DC, after he got the news, but tried to do so
“in a nonvisible way” to avoid bothering others.
Razin has honored Ofair’s memory by establishing a prize for the best
research paper by a Georgetown economics graduate student and a lecture
series in which he himself has spoken, as has his son Ronny (now a
professor at the London School of Economics). Other speakers among the
elite of the profession include Stanley Fischer, Cecilia Rouse, Jeff Sachs,
Dani Rodrik, and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, who has called the annual
event a “family reunion” of Razin’s wide circle of admirers.
In 2001, Razin’s 60th birthday celebration attracted the profession’s
leading international economists to Tel Aviv—including Krugman and Anne
Krueger (former IMF first deputy managing director). Deflecting the praise
heaped on him at the celebration, Razin quipped that he wished his parents
had been on hand: “my father would have liked to hear all this praise, and
my mother would have believed all of it.” He said he had no intention of
retiring but was merely taking a “a wonderful break between semesters.”
True to his word, he has been very active over the past 20 years, teaching
in the graduate program at Cornell University (he retired in 2016),
continuing with research, and publishing several books, including a
well-received analysis of how Israel has made the most of globalization.
He has been intimately following and writing on economic developments in
Israel for decades, and he put his ideas together in a 2018 book, Israel and the World Economy. Phillip Swagel, head of the US
Congressional Budget Office and a research collaborator of Razin’s, praised
the book’s clear exposition of why other countries had “experienced
problems with globalization [but] Israel had found success.” Unlike many
other countries, Israel was able to guide large foreign capital flows
toward its growth industry—start-ups in its high-tech sector. And Israel absorbed a million
immigrants—about 20 percent of its population—from the former Soviet Union
in the 1990s in a way that helped its high-tech sector and overall growth.
But Swagel also notes “Razin’s frankness on the potential pitfalls” of
globalization, including growing inequality within Israel—the highest in
the developed world.