What was going on when I was born?

Two committees of the New York State Legislature will conduct a joint investigation into the causes of the 53-hour inmate takeover at the state prison in Ossining, the chairmen of the panels said yesterday. ''We are going to see what officials knew prior to the outbreak,'' said Senator Ralph J. Marino, a Republican of Muttontown, L.I., who heads the Committee on Crime and Corrections. ''There was a riot. That means something went wrong. That means that we should look into this.''

The relative academic prestige of the country's top research universities has changed little over the last decade, according to a $500,000 study sponsored by four national academic organizations. The University of California at Berkeley emerged as the strongest graduate institution across the board on a ''reputational'' scale in which faculty members rated the academic quality of their peers across the country. Thirty-two fields were assessed on the relatively narrow basis of how successful they are perceived to be at turning out professional scholars and researchers. The reputations of Berkeley's departments were listed among the top 10 in 28 of them. Stanford University was in the top 10 in 24 fields, and Harvard University in 22.

When Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone arrives in Washington Monday after only 50 days in office, he will have to listen to a long string of complaints about the trading practices of his country. In spite of the trade liberalization measures announced last week to smooth the way for the trip, American officials are insisting that Japan still has a long way to go to provide the kind of access to its market that Japanese and other foreign products enjoy in this country. ''There are some impressive elements in the latest program, but the problems haven't gone away,'' said David Macdonald, the deputy United States trade representative. Hitting the High Points President Reagan has been briefed to hit the high points on the trade agenda - such issues as bigger quotas for beef and citrus fruits from the United States and the failure of Japan to purchase American telecommunications equipment, despite an agreement two years ago that it would.

Frank J. Macchiarola plans to resign today, after nearly five years as Chancellor of the city's public schools, to become the chief executive of the New York City Partnership, a business and civic group that directs projects in areas ranging from housing to summer jobs. Mr. Macchiarola's appointment to the $150,000-a-year post is expected to be announced at a news conference this morning by the chairman of the group, David Rockefeller, at 200 Madison Avenue. Officials of the Board of Education said yesterday that the Chancellor was leaving with a sense of achievement in improving educational standards but with concern over the system's future. The board faces layoffs of as many as 1,800 of its 55,000 teachers on Feb. 1 if it cannot close close a $37 million deficit.

Two of New York City's largest private teaching hospitals are pulling back on nearly $1 billion in planned rebuilding in response to Governor Cuomo's intention to freeze all hospital construction in the state for a year. At the Mount Sinai Medical Center, which had announced a $458 million building program, the director, Samuel Davis, said: ''It's clear that there will not be enough money to do all the things we would like to do. In light of the fiscal and public policy realities, we have redirected our architects to develop a more austere rebuilding plan and to look to less costly alternatives.'' At New York Hospital at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, the director, Dr. David J. Thompson, said the institution would be willing to begin almost $400 million in planned renovations gradually, rather than as part of one huge project.

Eugene V. Rostow, the President's former arms control chief, said today that an informal agreement on limiting medium-range missiles in Europe worked out by United States and Soviet negotiators last July was ''a promising approach and well worth further study.'' The informal agreement, which was worked out by Paul H. Nitze of the United States and Yuli A. Kvitsinsky of the Soviet Union in an effort to break the deadlock in negotiations, was rejected by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Speaking publicly for the first time about the abortive effort Mr. Rostow said the American Government, despite objections raised in Washington to Mr. Nitze's secret diplomacy, was more willing to keep the possible compromise going than the Soviet Government, which flatly rejected it in September. Mr. Rostow was dismissed last week as director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency as part of a shake-up by President Reagan of the management of arms control.

Mortgage rates have fallen by more than three percentage points in the last few months in the New York area, bringing eager home buyers who have been kept out of the market back to lenders for financing. Conventional fixed-rate mortgages, which carried a rate of close to 17 percent just six months ago, are readily available now at an average interest cost of 13.68 percent in New York, 13.45 percent in New Jersey and as low as 13.25 percent in Connecticut, according to a spot-check of area lenders. And with the decline in rates, which is expected to continue, housing sales are beginning to pull out of a more than yearlong slump. On the basis of preliminary figures, the National Association of Realtors said that sales of single-family existing homes last month rose to an estimated annual rate of 2.15 million units, up from 2.1 million in November and a low of 1.8 million set last August. ''The public is starting to buy, no question about it,'' said Craig Millard, head of the Millard Group, a rate reporting service based in New Canaan, Conn. ''Everybody's anticipating another point drop in the rates and people want to be in the marketplace, ready to buy, before the prices go up.''

International Eugene Rostow discussed the informal agreement on limiting mediumrange missiles in Europe worked out last July by United States and Soviet negotiators, led by Paul H. Nitze and Yuli A. Kvitsinky. He said it was ''a promising approach and well worth further study.'' The accord was rejected by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Mr. Rostow, recently dismissed as arms control chief by President Reagan, said that the United States, despite ojections raised in the Administration to what it said was Mr. Nitze's secret diplomacy, was more willing to keep the compromise idea alive than Moscow was. (Page A1, Column 2.) The world economic crisis will worsen unless other Western nations and Japan join the United States in getting their ecomomies moving again, an American policy maker said. Treasury Under Secretary Beryl Sprinkel said at a news conference in Paris that it was now ''critically important'' for the health of the world economy that nations that have made progress in reducing inflation to take steps to insure that they enjoy a ''credible economic expansion.'' (A1:3.)

After years of haggling, it is a bit risky to predict an end to the impasse between the Canadian Government and Newfoundland over offshore drilling. The bitter dispute concerns which of them should manage the exploitation of the nearly two billion barrels of oil discovered off the province's rocky coast, as well as how to divide the taxes on that oil. But more than a hint of optimism is beginning to be felt in the moist, salty air of Canada's poorest province. Federal Energy Minister Jean Chretien and his Newfoundland counterpart, William Marshall, have met four times in St. Johns during recent weeks, and again last week in Ottawa. They have agreed to what Mr. Marshall terms ''a framework'' for resolving the issue. Although details are tightly guarded, analysts believe the framework involves an acceptance by Ottawa of a greater provincial role in the black gold bonanza.

Eight oil-producing nations, including several that have quarreled over pricing policies, called today for an emergency meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in what one minister described as a last attempt to head off a price war. After two days of informal consultations in Bahrain, oil ministers from the eight countries proposed that the special meeting be held next Sunday in Geneva. The countries were Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Nigeria, Iraq and Libya. Iraq's oil minister, Qassem Ahmed Taqi, announced the decision in a statement that was carried by his Government's Iraqi News Agency. The oil minister of Libya, Kamal Hassan Naghur, joined the talks in Bahrain this morning. After his arrival, the Iraqi minister declared that ''Libya has agreed, and we now have a quorum for the meeting.''

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed suit against First Jersey Securities Inc., its chairman and founder, Robert E. Brennan, and a senior executive, charging that they illegally manipulated the securities of a company that First Jersey actively traded in, taking in more than $3 million in profits. The complaint, filed late Friday, charges that First Jersey, Mr. Brennan and Robert Beckson, a broker, artificially inflated the prices of shares of Geosearch Inc., a small New York concern whose principal activity consisted of preparing filings related to oil and gas leases offered by the Department of the Interior. The 11-page complaint, filed in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, in Manhattan, came a few hours after a three-member panel of judges in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia rejected a motion by First Jersey and Mr. Brennan to prevent the S.E.C. from issuing the complaint.

Attempts to solve the international debt crisis will fail and the world recession will worsen unless other Western nations and Japan join the United States in getting their economies moving again, a senior American policymaker warned today. The official, Treasury Under Secretary Beryl Sprinkel, told a news conference here that it was now ''critically important'' for the health of the world economy that industrial nations that have made good progress in reducing inflation take steps to insure that they enjoy ''a credible economic expansion.'' Without faster growth and the increase in trade this would bring, debt-burdened third world countries would never be able to earn enough money to repay what they owe, he said. The result could be a major banking crisis and a sharp contraction in industrial imports by developing countries, which would aggravate the recession, Mr. Sprinkel concluded.