James Tobin
James Tobin (March 5, 1918 – March 11, 2002) was an American economist who served on the Council of Economic Advisers and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard and Yale Universities. He developed the ideas of Keynesian economics, and advocated government intervention to stabilize output and avoid recessions. His academic work included pioneering contributions to the study of investment, monetary and fiscal policy and financial markets. He also proposed an econometric model for censored endogenous variables, the well-known "Tobit model". Tobin received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1981.
Tobit model
When asked why it was called the "Tobit" model, instead of Tobin, James Tobin explained that this term was introduced by Arthur Goldberger, either as a contraction of "Tobin probit", or as a reference to the novel "The Caine Mutiny", a novel by Tobin's friend Herman Wouk, in which Tobin makes a cameo as "Mr Tobit". Tobin reports having actually asked Goldberger which it was, and the man refused to say.