Prior to his leading the Fed, I viewed Bernanke as having been in the running for a future Nobel, although not being a necessary or hands-down winner.
Now, let's say that all of his unusual maneuvers at the Fed don't work. I believe his chance for the Prize will be slim. Correctly or not, he'll be remembered as the guy with the failed ideas.
Alternatively, say his methods do work and the economy recovers relatively quickly, with a minimum of additional pain for the banking sector. Should his chance go up? Will his chance for the Prize go up? Should he then be a shoo-in for the Prize? Could his success count as a remarkable and indeed unprecedented test of an economist's theories?
Just wondering.
Krugman’s award should make the answer to this question perfectly obvious. It is not just about the quality of the academic work.
Nobel? Do you mean for Peace, Literature, Physics, Chemistry or Medicine/Physiology?
Or are you referring to the made up Prize?
i) Swift recovery in the relatively short run is not all that farfetched. Politicians in both the US and Europe are spending money like drunken sailors on leave and nationalizing banks all over the place in order to dictate the credit supply; it would be surpricing if this wouldn’t have a significant effect in the short run. And when the economy eventually goes down the drain again because the spending is still unsustainable, very few would even consider the possibility that it might have something to do with what Bernanke and the politicians did today. Which leads to…
ii) a) How the economy performs and b) P(Bernanke will receive a Nobel Prize in economics) have little to nothing to do with each other.
You gotta love dearieme.
The Nobel Prize in economics should be done away with.
Had Alfred Nobel wanted to establish an economics prize he certainly would have. But he didn’t. It’s a prize tacked onto the genuine Nobels by and from the Sveriges Riksbank.
Should Bernanke win a prize? Sure.
How about the Hasty Pudding Prize with a special citation for his verve and vigor? [He might have to share that one with Paulson.]
Or how about the Turbo Tax Award for a speedy economic return. [Definitely won't have to share that one, at least not with Geitner.]
You guys are amazing. I think only “economist” types, drowned in academia, with Keynesian delusions could come up with these comments.
Bernanke is an idiot. Nothing less. Just like those 2 “economists” awarded the Nobel prize back in the 1980′s for their work in financial innovation, leading the 1998 Asian contagion, derivatives, mathematical voodoo as such, there are no MONETARY SUPPLY solutions to a lack of productive energies, and earnest enterprise.
America and the world are in trouble because the FED RESERVE exists and Alan Greenspan got to throttle up the money supply. This led to FALSE demand, that led to massive DEBT creation. The debts need to be cleared.
Making lots more debt will not solve anything. Roosevelt tried it, too. It made a LONG LONG Depression. The answer of all Keynesian morons is that they didn’t SPEND ENOUGH FAST ENOUGH. That is Krugman’s position. He is also an idiot. He and Bernanke spent way too much time inside locked rooms debating how the world outside works.
They are both wrong, and both should be kicked out of their positions as professors and FED regulators.
AS for Geithner, well he is just a crook. Nothing more.
He should be fired and then put in prison where he belongs.
You guys have a nice day.
Shiller should win.
Daniel Reeves: Well, back then economics wasn’t a science.
So nothing has changed?
Stiglitz was probably helped by his public positions. Being Chair of the CEA during the very prosperous 1990s, for example, probably influenced the way the was perceived by the Nobel committee.
I’m sure public sector success will be a crucial part of Bernanke’s potential Nobel prize too.
I am very critical of Bernanke, but let’s put that aside. Tyler, I wonder if in a future post you could lay out the criteria for success/failure. For example, suppose back in December 2007, when they were going to do the TALF (or whatever, I’m getting them mixed up at this point), Bernanke had explained what he would do with the monetary base over the next twelve months, and further explained what the unemployment rate, deficit forecast, and S&P500 would be in April 2009.
Do you think people would have said, “Woo hoo, let’s do it and hope things turn out that well!” ?
My point is, when do we get to say Bernanke has failed?
In all honesty, I’ve got a very low bar right now. If the U.S. manages to avoid double-digit inflation in each of the next five years, I will admit I underrated Bernanke. (I am being serious, so anyone with a super memory, please hold me to this.)
Even if the economy recovers quickly there will be a lot of debate over how much credit Bernanke should get, and that debate itself will be very political. If a consensus emerges that he deserves a lot of credit then I think he will probably win, but maybe not still be a shoo-in.
If applying macro theories to improve solve a crisis and promote growth were worth that much Jeffrey Sachs would probably be in the running for work in Bolivia and Poland (clearly the hyperinflation ended and Poland is doing well). But he’s associated more with Russia’s failure and no longer perceived as enough of an academic economist to be taken seriously, I think.
Bernanke’s citation rankings aren’t great according to Tom Coupe’s website (107 overall, Krugman was 14 for example). I think he’s still in the running for the prize, but much more so because of the world downturn. Not so much because of his public role, but because depression models seem more relevant now. The downturn will be changing research topics and it’s quite possible some of Bernanke’s papers will be big beneficiaries of that. But as is, his current work and influence doesn’t merit a prize.
If his efforts could really make some good improvements, then chances are there!
http://www.paydayonly.co.uk/
I don’t understand for the least bit how Bernanke can even be considered for a prize in anything when he was partially the cause of the very financial mess he is now trying to fix! Am I forgetting something here?
The performance of the prize committee in selecting a candidate is determined by popular/academic sentiment about how appropriate and deserving the recipient was. Unfortunately, at this point it is impossible for the prize committee to claim (with anybody believing them) that the prize is unrelated to his work as Fed chairman.
Because the scholarly and public service work cannot be disentangled in the mind of the public or fo the academic community, and because the Nobel in the public’s mind is for academic work–and not for public service work–his public service work will disqualify him. Justly or not.
Bernanke has been one of the very few people who have had the chance to put their academic theories into practice – to employ the basic insights of his theoretical work to save thousands of jobs across the world. He has had to be flexible, too, of course. And has had to take a lot of flak from politicians and the public.
Nobel Prize in Economics? Yes, I believe so. But let me see your Economics Prize and raise you a Peace Prize. His work has been that important.
yes, absolutely Ben Bernanke should win a Nobel Prize
Yes, I’m sure public sector success will be a crucial part of Bernanke’s potential Nobel Prize too
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