Pentti Kouri dies

Pentti Kouri (1949-2009) died in Los Angeles on 22 January, three weeks before his 60^th birthday on 12 February. His mother, brothers and sister as well as Elly, his former wife, were by his bedside. As he did not discuss his health condition, even with close friends, the news came as an even greater shock to them. I learned it through Urho Lempinen, a common friend who read about it in the Finnish press. Upon learning the bad news, I immediately tried to contact Roman Frydman who was himself about to call me.

We discussed how to pay tribute to our dear friend and mentor as I offered to follow up on my last conversation with Pentti when he invited me to spend a week end in Long Island in the Summer of 2005. At that time Pentti was thinking about collecting his papers and, as his former student and research assistant, I encouraged him to follow through. Sadly we did not manage to make any advance on this but Roman received a few months ago a folder with some of the material so that there is start. During that magic weekend we also planned on a trip to Portugal where he could speak in memory of my father, and tried to meet in Paris, where my daughter was studying, but the conference was postponed. I was unable to attend his son’s wedding so we never met again. I gave the bad news to other common friends from the Yale days and made a note on my website.

In paying tribute to a great economist, a man of heart and a dear friend of the extended family, I am only returning a little of what he gave me and all of those who interacted with him. I share a moving recollection:

“The positive aspect is that last October Pentti's reputation, which had suffered to a certain degree here in Finland due to some of his business transactions, was re-established to the extent that Pentti apparently was moved to tears. His large, precious and very high quality modern arts collection, which he had lost to Postipankki as collateral for his company’s un-paid loans, and which Postipankki later donated to the Finnish Museum of Modern Arts Kiasma, was officially named as the Pentti Kouri Collection in a ceremony in which Pentti was the guest of honour and gave a gracious speech. After the event Pentti is said to have told to some of his friends that now he can return to Finland”.

Lisbon, 26 January 2009