Results for “nobel”

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I see a few prime candidates:

1. Richard Thaler joint with Robert Schiller.  

2. Martin Weitzman and William Nordhaus, for their work on environmental economics.

3. Three prominent econometricians of your choice, bundled.

4. Jean Tirole, possibly bundled with Oliver Hart and other game theorists/principle agent theorists.  But last year the prize was in a similar field so the chances here have gone down for the time being.

5. Doug Diamond, bundled with another theorist or two of financial intermediation, such as John Geanakopolos.  Bernanke probably has to wait, although that may militate against the entire idea of such a prize right now.

6. Dale Jorgenson plus ???? (Baumol?) for a productivity prize.

I see #1 or #2 as most likely, with Al Roth and Ernst Fehr also in the running.  Sadly, it seems it is too late for the deserving Tullock.

In general I think Robert Barro has a good chance but I don't see him being picked so close to a financial crisis; the pick would be seen as an endorsement of Barro's negative attitude toward fiscal stimulus and I don't expect that from the Swedes.  The financial crisis is a problem for Fama especially, though he is arguably the most deserving of the non-recipients.  Paul Romer is another likely winner, although they may wait until rates of growth pick up in the Western world.  He is still young.  The Thomson-Reuters picks seem too young and for Alesina the political timing probably is not right for the same reasons as Barro.

Here is a blog post on the betting odds for the literature prize; NgŠ©gÄ© wa Thiong'o is rising on the list.  Not long ago the absolute favorite was Tomas Tranströmer, who perhaps should start his own line of toys or have his name put on a school of engineering.

Bob T., a loyal MR reader, asks:

Who are the best economists who did not win the Nobel Prize since its inception until today, e.g., Alchian, Tullock, Tiebout(?), and Barro?

I'll add Albert Hirschman and Anthony Downs to that list.  Who else?  Kevin Murphy is a tremendous economist, qua economist, although he doesn't fit the traditional Nobel mold.

Whoops!  Usually today I'm supposed to stay home and cover the winner of the economics Nobel Prize.  But I'm on a plane home from Paris as the prize is announced and I am not landing for many hours.

Alex may well provide coverage of his own, but in the meantime please leave your discussion and analysis here in the comments.

I remember last year when one reporter at a prominent newspaper said to me: "If it's Lars Hansen you *are* going to explain to us what he did in plain English, right?"  Well…if Lars is going to win it, here's hoping that this is the year.

The WSJ offers up some predictions, although not for economics.

For this year (NB: I've never been right in the past) I am predicting a joint prize for Oliver Williamson and Jean Tirole.  Williamson is by some accounts the most cited living economist, Tirole is European, the pick would not look "political," and yet agency problems have proven to be pretty important as of late.  The selection would look relevant.  I used to pick Fama each year but the time is no longer right for him, whether that is fair or not (I would say not).

My dark horse pick is a joint prize to environmental economists, including William Nordhaus for the concept of "green accounting."

I thank Akshay for the pointer.  What do you all predict?

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.

You’ll find it here.  And here is his current forecast (with which I agree):

Paul Krugman, winner of this year’s Nobel economics prize, said on
Monday that the world could face a Japan-style, decade-long slump…

"A scenario I fear is that we’ll see, for the whole world, an
equivalent of Japan’s lost decade, the 1990s — that we’ll see a world
of zero interest rates, deflation, no sign of recovery, and it will
just go on for a very extended period," he told a news conference.

"And that’s unfortunately very easy to see happen."

If it is any (minor) consolation, growth is usually understated during such downturns, because it is more likely to take the form of hard-to-measure quality improvements rather than big expenditure-intensive projects. 

The slides are excellent, find them here, watch the talk at 9 a.m. here.

He is cited for trade theory and, appropriately, location theory and economic geography.  He could have been cited for his work on currency crises as well.  Here are the most basic links on Paul, it is hard to know where to start.  I have to say I did not expect him to win until Bush left office, as I thought the Swedes wanted the resulting discussion to focus on Paul’s academic work rather than on issues of politics.  So I am surprised by the timing but not by the choice.

Here’s Krugman’s NYT column from today; there is so so much on him and by him.  Here is his blog.  Here is a short post-prize interview.  He has been influential in pushing the United States toward a bank recapitalization plan.  Here is Krugman on video, from just the other day, talking about the crisis and how bad it might get.  Krugman, of course, also called the housing bubble in advance.

Krugman is very well known for his work on strategic trade theory, as it is now called.  Building on ideas from Dixit, Helpman, and others, he showed how increasing returns could imply a possible role for welfare-improving protectionism.  Krugman, however, insisted that he did not in practice favor protectionism; it is difficult for policymakers to fine tune the relevant variables.  Boeing vs. Airbus is perhaps a simple example of the argument.  If a government can subsidize the home firm to be a market leader, the subsidizing country can come out ahead through the mechanism of capturing the gains from increasing returns to scale.  Here are some very useful slides on the theory.  Here is Dixit’s excellent summary of Krugman on trade.  Krugman himself has admitted that parts of the theory may be less relevant for rich-poor countries trade (America and China) rather than rich-rich trade, such as America and Japan.

I am most fond of Krugman’s pieces on economic geography, in particular on cities and the economic rationales for clustering.  He almost single-handedly resurrected the importance of "location theory," an all-important but previously neglected branch of economics.  Here is the best summary piece of Krugman’s work in this area.  I believe this work will continue to rise in influence.

I have my own favorite pieces by Krugman.  This include his short critique of Austrian trade cycle theory and his short piece on why the British had such bad food.

He is also, by the way, a loyal MR reader but he is not the first reader to win the prize.

Krugman’s books:

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal.  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction.  Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism.  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen.  Pop Internationalism is also the work of Krugman’s most likely to be popular with market-oriented economists.  Here is a collection of Krugman’s earlier writings.  The Great Unraveling — circa 2004 — is for me too under-argued.  His book Currencies and Crises is in my view his most underrated work; it provides a very readable introduction to some of his ideas on financial crises and it has a nice use of the concept of option value.  Development, Geography, and Economic Theory is a very good and very readable introduction to his work on economic geography.  That and the currency book are my two favorites by Krugman.  Geography and Trade is useful plus here is a more technical collection on the spatial economy.

Krugman has a widely used Principles text, co-authored with his wife Robin Wells.  He also has a leading text in international economics co-authored with Maurice Obstfeld.

Here are profiles and bio pieces, none very recent.  Here is Krugman on how he works — very personal and insightful.  Some of Krugman’s thinking on the liquidity trap — a key issue today for the crisis — can be found here.

Krugman of course is a controversial figure in the blogosphere and in politics but I believe for today it is best to set those issues aside.  His Wikipedia page has lots on the critics plus some bio as well.  Daniel Klein for instance argued that Krugman should do more to speak out for freer markets in various settings.

Krugman’s early columns for Slate.com were an important model for shaping what the econ blogosphere later became.  They are models of clarity and rigor which we all would do well to emulate.  His exposition of Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage is remarkably good and it is one of the best pieces of popular economics writing I know.

Award analysis: This was definitely a "real world" pick and a nod in the direction of economists who are engaged in policy analysis and writing for the broader public.  Krugman is a solo winner and solo winners are becoming increasingly rare.  That is the real statement here, namely that Krugman deserves his own prize, all to himself.  This could easily have been a joint prize, given to other trade figures as well, but in handing it out solo I believe the committee is a) stressing Krugman’s work in economic geography, and b) stressing the importance of relevance for economics.  Daniel Davies also sees it as a career-based award. 

Who are the big losers?  Avinash Dixit and Elhanan Helpman and Maurice Obstfeld have to feel their chances for the prize went down significantly.

Addendum: Here is Bryan Caplan on "Paul Krugman, Guilty Pleasure."

You’ll find more here, here, and here.  Lots of people favor time series but I’m still picking Oliver Williamson and Jean Tirole.  They gave the prize to theorists last year and now they need to bring it down to earth and also they might wish to choose a Frenchman.  Such a joint prize would in my opinion be well deserved.