Richard Fritz
Richard Fritz’s interest in France started in 1966 in Italy, where he was spending his senior year of college studying humanities in Florence, and met another student, Judy McFarlin, who was majoring in French. They married in 1968. Judy went on to earn a doctorate in French and have a career teaching French and organizing student exchange programs. Richard earned a Ph.D. in economics and held faculty positions at several universities. In 1985 they spent a sabbatical semester in Aix-en-Provence where he was a Research Fellow at the Centre Des Hautes Etudes Touristiques at the Université Aix-Marseille. From 1988 to 2007 he also worked for the Research Department at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta, where he became the Chief Economist. He retired from the bank in 2007 but continued to teach at the Georgia Institute of Technology until the spring of 2020. Visiting Paris for a month this past spring and following in Bela Belassa’s culinary footsteps in Paris became their post-pandemic retirement reward.
Culinary Utility of the Dollar in Paris: 6 Recommendations from a Gourmet Economist
Culinary sleuths Richard and Judy Fritz set out on a deliciously intriguing culinary adventure in Paris as they followed in the footsteps of a little-known restaurant guide written in the 1980s by renown economist Bela Balassa, leading to their discovery of six notable and enduring restaurants to consider for your own culinary adventures.