It doesn’t have to be this way for everyone but this is far and away the most productive part of my life and I see no reason that this might not go on for a while yet. What brings this to mind is an article on early retirement in academia. It is written by a woman who made the choice to opt for early retirement five years ago and believes that people who remain at their post are harming the prospects for the next generation of academics.

The inconvenient truth is that faculty who delay retirement harm students, who in most cases would benefit from being taught by someone younger than 70, even younger than 65. The salient point is not that younger professors are better pedagogues (sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t), but that they are more likely to be current in their fields and to bring that currency into their teaching.

Septuagenarian faculty members also cost colleges more than younger faculty—in the form of higher salaries, higher health-care costs, and higher employer-matched retirement contributions. Even if these costs pale in comparison to paying for bloated administrations, it’s wrong to pretend they don’t matter.

Worst of all, their presence stifles change. I’m not talking about mindless change for change’s sake, but the kind of change necessary to keep an institution thriving. A healthy university consists of departments with a balanced mix of new hires (full of energy, ambition, and fresh ideas), middle-aged faculty members at the height of their productivity, and older faculty with wisdom and a deep understanding of the evolving mission of their departments and universities. Disrupt that balance, and the foundation of an institution’s strength is undermined.

What she writes may be true in some cases but not in others. It is astonishing to me but I am amongst the leading anti-Keynesian economists in the world and am the world’s authority on Say’s Law. I also find myself, and this to my great surprise, amongst the leading scholars on the economics of John Stuart Mill, which has only taken place by accident. I still publish both books and articles and I run one of the most innovative classrooms you will find anywhere. Most importantly, I feel I am still in the conversation on the issues that matter to me, and that if I could not add my voice to the views of others, there would be something missing from out modern discussions on economic theory and policy. And it is precisely because so many disagree with what I have to say that makes my presence all the more valuable.

And being amongst economists, I am surrounded by people who are very good at mathematics but in my view have almost no idea how an economy works. The questions they ask and then answer in the articles many of them write seem trivial to me and the conclusions when they reach them of almost no value, as far as I can tell, for anyone who might need to make a decision about anything.

There may well be some faculty who hang on too long but the net result is that students are able to meet and learn from a range of people with different presuppositions about life and their own subject area. Once upon a time it was understood that scholars remained scholarly all their lives. Picking one example, that is only seen through her own eyes of someone who is past his use-by-date is just one more example of ageism, which as I get older I see more often for myself. Speaking personally, I hope to continue for a little while yet.