Bringing a human and relatable dimension to a difficult field of expertise, this anthology collects autobiographical essays by Nobel Prize laureates in economics. Here are Eric Maskin, who illustrates his explanation of mechanism design with an example involving a mother, a cake, and two children; Paul Krugman, who describes the insights he gained from studying the Capitol Hill Babysitting Co-op; and Peter Diamond, who maps his development from student to teacher to policy analyst. Other contributors include Milton Friedman, Edmund Phelps, and Robert Solow.