Walter Nicholson is the Ward H. Patton Emeritus Professor of Economics at Amherst College and a visiting professor at Ave Maria University, Naples, Florida. Over his teaching career, Professor Nicholson has sought to develop in students an appreciation for the value of economic models in the study of important social questions. He also has enjoyed showing students some of the stranger things that economists have sought to model. Nicholson received his PhD in economics from MIT. Most of his research is in the area of labor economics, especially policy questions related to unemployment.