Bob Parks started his academic career with an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1968, followed by a PhD from Purdue University in 1971. He then joined Washington University in St. Louis, where he taught for a round 50 years. He left us on January 24, 2025, having touched scores of WUStL students, been vital to the RePEc project, and leaving a lasting impact on the profession in general.
His academic publishing was on microeconomic theory and he taught also econometrics. A long-time director of graduate studies, he was a mentor for many students even when he was not advising them. He also saw the need for a good computing environment for graduate students and set up a lab early on, complete with a direct line to the Internet drawn through the campus with the help of the students.
Bob realized the potential of the Internet for economists: In 1993, he obtained the code for ArXiv and set up the pioneering Economics Working Paper Archive (EconWPA, now archived by the Library of the University of Munich) that laid the foundation for hosting economics working papers on the web. Bob also provided hosting for all sorts of projects, including the precursors of RePEc (NetEc, WoPEc, BibEc, EDIRC, and more) and RePEc itself, and he lectured about the Internet on many campuses and conferences, often with Bill Goffe. He saw a future for the Internet in economics that has largely been realized, in part with Bob’s early support of RePEc.
Bob was always present on the internal RePEc mailing lists, offering his services and his sharp advice. Bob, RePEc and the profession owe you a bunch.
In the early 1990 the internet started to become a more mainstream communication tool. Four early figures emerged with an interest in bringing it to impact scholarly communication in economics. These were George D. Greenwade, Robert P. Parks, William L. Goffe and myself. With Bob’s passing, we lost the second of the quartet. All four took some risk in looking at this issue rather than staying on a strict academic path. Bob and I were intellectually at opposite sides of thinking about the path forward. However, we were both similar in our communication. We appearing determined and strident in written communication. On the early NetEc lists that I ran, we appeared to agree on nothing except our right to have constant verbal spars. I think we first met in Päffgen’s at the time Markus Hatterscheid hosted the first ever NetEc meeting. We must both have been surprised how nice and friendly we were as actual people.
Bob ran the NetEc mirror in WUStL. In the 2000s he contributed two servers. These were important as I lost access to servers in the UK. Remember this was way before hosted servers became commodified. I traveled to St. Louis to set up the servers. He put me up at his house. This was I believe the most important contribution to RePEc. With the closure of EconWPA his impact waned. He took part in the St. Louis RePEc meeting in 2017. At that moment, I did paid tribute both the the man and the place to say we need more of an archival centre in RePEc, basically throwing weight behind his vision. It will hopefully stay with us.
Bob and I collaborated extensively in the early days of the internet. We first connected in 1993 when I was writing the sci.econ.research FAQ, which later became “Resources for Economists on the Internet” and he sent me some very helpful comments. Our relationship blossomed and starting the next year, we gave 30 talks and workshops on how economists might use this new technology. Locations ranged from the ASSA, to the central bank of Hungary, and to the CIA. By the time we stopped these in 2002, internet usage was well established in the profession, and I would like to think that we played a small role in its uptake.
In 1997 we published “The Future Information Infrastructure in Economics” in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. In the opening of that paper, we outlined how economists might use the internet in the future. This outline has come to pass, with online access to data, papers, and real-time collaboration between authors.
Our collaborations were both fruitful and enjoyable. We had complementary skills, and we thoroughly enjoyed working with each other. Looking beyond ourselves, I’d like to think that others benefited from our work.
In checking my voluminous e-mail folder with Bob (more than 7,000 messages), I just reread what was to be our last messages. We were not able to connect when I was in St. Louis in late 2023 and I said that I hoped we would meet next time I was there. I’m so sad that such a meeting will not occur.
In the early Internet days, communications were not that fast and any site with some substance needed local mirrors. This is how I first got into contact with Bob, as he set up a North American mirror for my EDIRC project. It seemed that his generosity had infinite resources, while in fact his office was completely taken over by servers hosting the myriads of other projects relying on him. But that was fine with him, as he saw the utility of what he was doing, rightfully so.
That came to an end in 2005 when he had to vacate all this hardware. I ended up hosting the RePEc Author Service, which came in a box through the mail. Ironically, six years later, I would move to St. Louis on the other side of town, with the same box. By then, he was much less active and we met half a dozen times, once at the Bank where he could meet his computing assistant from the early days, who just so happened to be one of my employees. The world is small. And Bob made it better.
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