Here Comes the Credit Roll...

Here's NF's best friend from childhood, Abhinav Anand's Acknowledgment section from his recently completed PhD thesis in economics:

Acknowledgment

“All this happened, more or less”, thus begins Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, the opening lines echoing the hazy, ambiguous, somewhat amorphous mix of sentiments the culmination of my PhD evokes in me. It has been an eventful journey and I daresay I have learned much, though a sense of humility, engendered by the depth of my ignorance; and a feeling of excitement of learning so much more, remain the stronger impressions.

While I will be credited as the sole author of this thesis, it is definitely a collaborative effort only made possible by the support of so many. My deepest thanks go to my dissertation advisor Professor Sandro Brusco whose razor-sharp mind, awe-inspiring erudition and insistence on independent thinking have shaped my development in important ways. I thank Professor Yair Tauman for his unconditional support, good humor and ever-useful advice all through my PhD. I also wish to thank Professor Pradeep Dubey for first suggesting the problem that kick-started my PhD, for helping me shift to the Economics department from Applied Mathematics; and for inculcating in me a love for writing which is clear, precise, even beautiful.

I have been incredibly lucky to have been mentored by Professor Svetlozar Rachev whose lectures in Mathematical Finance in general, and those on fat-tailed distributions in particular, taught me whatever little I do know in Finance. A large part of my research builds upon the pioneering work done by him over the years and the wonderful textbooks he has written on the subject. I also thank Professor Young Shin Kim for his constant guidance and for supervising my research work in Finance which owes a great debt to a sequence of papers written by him recently. It is indeed an honor to co-author a paper with him and it was my great fortune to work with him in the College of Business in my final stages of PhD. I also want to applaud Professor Hugo Benitez-Silva and his helmsmanship of the Economics department. His adept handling of all difficulties — academic, financial or otherwise — helped me stay on course and complete my PhD.

Among fellow graduate students and friends, I must first thank Bruno for teaching me almost everything I know in Economics; Sama and Soyol for always being there when it mattered; Tiantian and Kurosaki san for being so patient during our collaboration; Monstha and Vatsa for all the years of companionship; Vatsa, Vicky and Abhra for their “Fellowship for Impecunious Graduate Students”; Jacques for five years of uninterrupted comedy; Tamara and Anju for making commuting a fun adventure; Xin and Kaya for being inspirations; Deniz for her invaluable friendship; Michael, Lala and Sumit babu for being my wonderful little faux-Karamazovian family at 213 Main Street; and of course to Shishir for being a friend indeed.

Thanks also to all my family whose total trust and support I’m lucky enough to have enjoyed all through my life — in particular, to Mitu bhaiya and Abha bhabhi for being the iron pillars of support I could rely on. I end by thanking my late grandfather Pt. Dharnidhar Dwivedi in whose memory this thesis is dedicated.