October 06, 2004

Who will win the Nobel prize ?

While I'm busy scanning the electoral tealeaves, quite a few other economists will be anxiously waiting for a phone call from Stockholm. It's Nobel prize time, and various people have had a go at assessing likely candidates. Brad DeLong says you should pick fields (I think he's right about this) and goes for the trade trio of Bhagwati-Dixit-Krugman. Tyler Cowen looks at seven candidates. And of course, there's a betting market

For what it's worth, I'd like to see Robert Shiller win. However, on Brad's criterion, it could be argued that he'll have to wait until "behavioral finance" gets a guernsey. Kahneman's prize a couple of years ago was in the same general field and this might count against it.

And then, of course there's Don Luskin

Posted by jquiggin at October 6, 2004 08:37 AM | TrackBack
Comments

What do you think Tyler Cowen means by

"Krugman winning the prize today would mean something very different than Krugman winning the prize five years ago. The chance of this happening is either much greater or much less than I think, I am simply not sure which."?

He seems to be saying that Krugman's chances are affected by his role as NYT columnist, in particular as trenchant critic of George W. Bush, and that if he does win it, the award will be assessed in terms of what people think about his columns.

Posted by: Uncle Milton at October 6, 2004 09:02 AM

That was my interpretation also

Posted by: John Quiggin at October 6, 2004 09:04 AM

Hate to sound like a science crank (but clearly I am) but what nobel prize for economics?

Perhaps you mean the Bank of Sweden prize awdarded by the nobel committee?

Posted by: Steve at October 6, 2004 09:05 AM

That would be the The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

It is a Nobel Prize. But the winners are not Nobel Laureates.

Posted by: Uncle Milton at October 6, 2004 09:13 AM

My trifecta
Prescott, Schelling and Tullock.
Although it's a terrible betting situation. The winner takes all. There is no information on who came second or third in previous years. So it's more like a lottery
And wouldn't it be great if my favourite tranny, who is so politically incorrect, Deirdre N. McCloskey, got up?
Ain't going to happen though, unfortunatly.

Posted by: tipper at October 8, 2004 02:14 AM