By Ana M. Martirena-Mantel

Rolf Ricardo Mantel was born in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in October 19th., 1934. His mother, Irma Margarita Muller, was argentine with a german ancestry. His father Ricardo Jorge Mantel, was born in Switzerland - in the Italian Canton - and studied Economics at the University of Zurich. He moved to Argentina still being very young in order to join an international textile corporation in Buenos Aires. Rolf also had two younger sisters, Gilda and Margarita.

During the 50's he received an excellent highschool education at the Colegio Nacional of San Isidro in which he started to develop his special skills and interest towards Mathematics.

At this time he met Ana María Martirena who would become his life long wife and classmate, sharing his passion towards Economic Science.

From this relationship his only son Pablo Ricardo was born in 1970, who was strongly influenced intellectually as well as morally by his father. Rolf had the pride of awarding Pablo the degree of Licenciado in Economics at the University of San Andrés, the same University in which he was Plenary Professor until the end of his earthly life.

During the years Rolf studied at the University of Buenos Aires (Department of Economic Sciences) for his Bachellor Degree as a Certified Public Accountant, he felt special attraction towards Mathematical Economics and Scientific Research. He published his first paper early in his career, in which he analized the effects of increasing public expenditure on national income, assuming consumers spread their spenditure smoothly over certain period of time.

Thanks to this paper, in 1961 Professor Julio H. G. Olivera asked Rolf to join his permanent Seminar on Economic Theory. This Seminar - at that time the University still did not offer a formal career on Economics - contributed to his solid theoretical background and enabled him to receive an external fellowship at the National Council for Scientific Research of Argentina (CONICET) - created in 1955 to foster research in all scientific disciplines -.

In this year he married Ana María Martirena who also was awarded an external fellowship which allowed them both to initiate their lives as spouses in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues at Yale University. The finantial support during his four years at Yale (1961-65) was provided by the CONICET, the Organization of American States and Yale University.

Rolf performed brilliantly as a graduate student at Yale University. Many of his Professors admired his deep questions and sharp comments during lectures, whatever the subject was: Economic Theory, Mathematical Economics, International Economics, Econometrics, among others.

His reputation as a brilliant mind grew stronger in the following four years, enhanced even more by the honours he received in every course he took for credit. Finally in 1966 Yale awarded him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) in Economics, following his dissertation entitled "Toward a Constructive Proof of the Existence of Equilibrium in a Competitive Economy", which he prepared initially under the guidance of Professor Tjalling Koopmans and later, of Professor Herbert Scarf; the third member of his dissertation Committee was Professor Michael Montias.

The Graduation Committee commanded his dissertation for its outstanding quality, and it was entirely published in the Yale Economic Essays of 1966.

In 1965 he returned to Argentina as Chief Researcher of the Centro de Investigaciones Económicas of the Torcuato Di Tella Institute, position he held until the late 80´s. Researchers from the Center were graduates from the best Universities of the U.S.A. and England , devoted full time to research and teaching at different Universities of the Buenos Aires´s area.

Rolf started formal teaching in 1966 as Associate Professor of Monetary Economics at the Argentine Pontificial Catholic University and, in 1967 as Full Professor of Mathematical Economics.

In 1969 he was appointed by an open an public contest Professor of Theory of Economic Policy at the Department of Economics ("Facultad de Ciencias Económicas") of the University of Buenos Aires. In 1972 he obtained the tenure at this University , and mantained this position until 1973, when he was abruptly separated from his teaching position, and the University became involved in sterile ideological struggles which lasted almost seven years. He never knew for certain whether he was fired by the ideological right or by the idiological left. After a long and sterile struggle with the authorities of the University of Buenos Aires, he left the University for ever in 1983 and initiated a new teaching career in private universities.

The sole remembrance of this event made him feel bitter and several years later - December 20, 1985 - Rolf would publish an article in the argentine newspaper La Nación entitled "Silver Wedding", in which he described the sad and incredible 25 year relationship he had endured as regular professor of the Economics Department of the University of Buenos Aires.

Except for short trips to attend conferences or seminars, he returned to the U.S.A. four times.The first as Research Associate at the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago for two months in 1966.The second as Visiting Full Professor at the Cowles Foundation at Yale University for the academic year 1975/76, at the same time his wife Ana María was appointed Visiting Professor of International Economics (IFEA Program), and their son Pablo initiated his primary school in New Haven.

The third time was as Visiting Full Professor at the Department of Economics of Northwestern University, during the winter quarter of 1978/79.The fourth was during the Summer Quarter of 1985, as Visiting Full Professor at Harvard University where he taught an advanced course in Mathematical Economics.

His last academic trip abroad was during the First Quarter of 1998, the same year in which his serious illness was declared. He was invited as Visiting Research Fellow of the Weizmann Institute, Department of Mathematics, were he did research with Professor Yakar Kannai.

In 1974, after a rigurous selection process based on previous achievements, he was appointed Career Scientist by the Argentine National Council for Scientific Research, Career Scientists are considered regularly for class promotion, depending on the quality and quantity of their scientific output. Almost ten years before his death Rolf had been promoted to the highest class of "Investigador Superior".

In 1971 he became advisor to the Secretary of State of the National Council for Economic Development, in 1974 for the Secretary of State of Science and Technology and in 1978 for the Argentine Central Bank.

After a two year appointment as Senior Member of CEMA (Center for Macroeconomic Studies of Argentina, today University of CEMA), he accepted as a challenge the opportunity of creating and directing the Department of Economics of the young University of San Andrés - a private university created in 1990 by the Asociacion Civil Escocesa San Andrés which in turn ran the School of San Andrés which was born in 1838-.

Rolf's teaching at the University of San Andrés focused on Advanced Microeconomics, Resource Allocation Theory and Dynamic Optimization. The course on this last topic soon became renowned among students.

Rolf helped to build a strong Department of Economics where the best students were attracted towards Economic Theory because of his influence and leadership. Many of them were later accepted as graduate students of Economics at several of the most important universities of the U.S.A. and England.

Teaching was a very important activity for Rolf, and students were specially fond of the patience he always showed towards them. They strongly admired and appreciated his dedication as well as his powerful mind and his passionate devotion to Science.

He had a special gift: the discovery of good students to whom he was able to communicate very easily. In return, they corresponded by producing a kind of "revolution" when Rolf was considering the idea of leaving permanently the administrative responsibility he had as Department Director at the end of 1998, to be able to focus on research. It seemed as if he had a sort of intuition about what would soon happen to his health, as if he did not have much time to spare.

Many students as well young professors of the Department of Economics asked the authorities of the University to appoint Rolf as Emeritus Professor so that he would be able to focus on scientific research. They could not stand the possibility of loosing Rolf as full time Professor of San Andrés. The petition was finally accepted and Rolf stayed, having been deeply moved beyond any doubt by the students' gesture.

However, God had different plans for Rolf. At the early age of sixty four he was diagnosed cancer and undergone a succesful surgical intervention on January 1999. In spite of this, in a very unexpected way, Rolf Mantel died on February 7th, 1999 , victim of a pulmonary tromboembolism, leaving a great human, scientific and professional emptiness to his collegues, friends and family.