Families, Geistkreis and New York

Workaholics can produce positive neighbourhood effects whilst imposing negative externalities on partners and children. The co-recipients of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, Friedrich August Hayek and Karl Gunnar Myrdal, appeared to have fallen into this category. Hayek and his second wife, Helene Warhanek, née Bitterlich, created three unhappy families: their first marriages, to other partners, and their second marriage, to each other. As Myrdal’s wife, Alva, won the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize, their son, Jan, published a book about his childhood. According to their daughter, Sissela Bok (1991, 340), the Swedish press carried excerpts from the book under headlines such as ‘Jan Myrdal Gets Even With His Parents’.