Economics

Player            School Class                Major Bryan Arnett       Eastern    Jr.        Theology/youth ministry Mansur Gishkaev Temple    Jr.                    Economics Nikoloz Kurdadze Drexel    Jr.        Business administration Hicham Laalej       Penn       Sr. Systems sci., engineering Filip Rams          Temple    Jr.     Sport, recreation mngt.

Arnold H. Raphaelson, 80, of Dresher, professor emeritus of economics at Temple University, died of complications from lung cancer Thursday, July 22, at Abington Memorial Hospital. Dr. Raphaelson taught undergraduate and graduate students at Temple for 40 years until retiring in 2006. "Arnie loved teaching and put his heart and soul into it," said Richard E. Bernstein, an associate professor of economics at Temple. "He was witty and conscientious and was an old-school, chalk-and-talk guy. " Dr. Raphaelson served on Temple's Education Program and Policy Committee and on the Faculty Senate and its steering committee.

Irving Bernard Kravis, chairman of economics at the University of Pennsylvania during his department's rise to national prominence, died Friday at Methodist Hospital. He was 75 and lived in Haverford. Mr. Kravis, best known for his pioneering work in international price comparisons, was honored the day after his death as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. A memorial service was held for him yesterday. Mr. Kravis was chairman of the economics department at Penn from 1955 to 1958 and from 1962 to 1967, and was associate dean of the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce from 1958 to 1960.

The Rev. John J. Farrell, 79, president of Biscayne College in Miami from 1975 to 1980 and a development office executive at Villanova University from 1980 to 1993, died Friday, Oct. 5, of heart failure at AristaCare at Meadow Springs in Plymouth Meeting. Born on Staten Island, N.Y., Father Farrell studied at the Augustinian Academy there from 1946 to 1950, then entered the Augustinian religious order and was ordained a priest in 1959. Father Farrell earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy at Villanova in 1955 and completed his theological studies in 1959 at Augustinian College in Washington.

James Douglas Brown Jr., 63, the first president of Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, died Tuesday at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Conn. A New Haven resident for the last 10 years, he was born in New Brunswick and had lived in Pennington. After a distinguished career in higher education, Dr. Brown was named president of Thomas Edison State College in 1972 when the pioneering school was about to open. The college was aimed at mature adults, allowing them to combine their work experience with course work to earn college degrees.

Herbert R. Northrup, 89, of Haverford, professor emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a labor specialist who developed groundbreaking theories on race in the workplace, died of a stroke Monday at Bryn Mawr Hospital. In the 1960s, while chairing the department of industry at Wharton, Dr. Northrup edited The Negro and Employment Opportunity. The book concluded that economics, not civil rights, was the chief factor underlying racial tension in the United States.

IF YOU'RE an egg-head economist who studies such esoteric subjects as location theory and regional science, it helps to have two major characteristics: A) An ability to predict the future. B) A sense of frisky fun. Walter Isard, an internationally known expert on regional economics as well as the science of establishing a peaceful world in the Quaker spirit to which he adhered, had both. When in the '50s many economists were predicting that the American steel industry would have its major expansion in New England, Isard said forget it. It's going to happen in Bucks County.

After being shut down for fire-code violations for 2 1/2 weeks, the Center for Economics and Law Charter School is scheduled to reopen this morning. But the high school's 183 students and dwindling number of teachers are not returning to their trouble-plagued building at 4th and Gaskill streets. Instead, classes will be held in West Philadelphia in rooms rented for Lincoln University at 3020 Market St. The location was vacated at the end of last year by another charter school that now operates from a traditional school building on the Avenue of the Arts.

A young investment banker who attended top schools and published an article in an influential journal fresh out of college died after a confrontation with employees at an Atlantic City strip joint. Peter Westra, 24, who worked for Deutsche Bank in London, had gone to the gambling resort to attend a bachelor party that included former classmates from private Middlebury College in Vermont. He died Sunday morning after being evicted from Naked City, a club on New York Avenue that had been cited for prostitution and alcohol violations.

Little has been heard about foreign policy in this presidential campaign. That's because, conventional wisdom says, America's number one problem is getting its own house in order. True. But I think the problem goes much deeper. Most voters understand that America can't isolate itself from today's global economy. But the world has become so complex, it's harder than ever for even the most sophisticated folks to understand the issues. Or for candidates to talk about them. That's why George Bush focuses on his past experience but doesn't make it clear how it's relevant to a very different future.