Michael Farrell

Michael James Farrell (9 May 1926 – 27 October 1975), was a Cambridge economist professionally known as M. J. Farrell. Academically he is remembered largely for the celebrated parametric measure of productive efficiency that he published in 1957. Biography Mike Farrell was born in Swindon, England, in 1926. He was the son of Richard J. Farrell, OBE, an engineer for the Crown Agents for Overseas Governments and Administrations, and Margaret E. Deane. In 1934, his family moved to Sheffield, England, and in 1936 he entered King Edward VII School, Sheffield. In 1944 he won a scholarship to New College, Oxford. He travelled to the US in 1951. While in the USA he met Margaret Bacon, later a psychologist and psychotherapist, daughter of Ernst Bacon, whom he married in 1952. He returned to Cambridge with Margaret in 1953. They had five sons. In 1957, he contracted poliomyelitis. He spent most of a year in the hospital, never recovering fully. Being an avid tennis player and “rambler,” the lasting effects of polio were severely limiting. Despite a dire initial prognosis that he would never walk again, through his determination, he eventually did walk, often unaided.