As an alumnus in economics (BSc, U. de Montréal, 2005), I must admit that I always try to keep myself updated with the Nobel Prize winners in economics. Switching from economics to marketing, was a hard but inevitable decision for me at the time, since the research I am currently conducting is related to economics, especially macroeconometrics, but it is not considered as part of economics, more precisely as part of marketing and strategy.
Thus, on this Canada’s Thanksgiving day, at 11AM this morning (5PM, Stockholm time, Sweden), I am happy to share the information that the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in economics to Peter A. Diamond (Massachusetts Institute of Technology; USA), Dale T. Mortensen (Northwestern University; USA), and Christopher A. Pissarides (London School of Economics; Cyprus, UK) three researchers for their contributions in the analysis of markets with search frictions. Instead of repeating word by word what both of the recipients have to say, here are some links to some Nobel Prize winners information.
Diamond, Mortensen, and Pissarides 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics speed read
Diamond, Mortensen, and Pissarides 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics Prize Announcement
Diamond, Mortensen, and Pissarides 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics Press release
Here is also a list of past Nobel Prize winners in Economics from 1969 to 2009, with University of attachment when the prize was awarded, country of attachment (origins, work, etc…), and Curriculum Vitae in parentheses:
1969 – Ragnar Frisch (University of Oslo; Norway; CV), for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes, and Jan Tinbergen (Netherlands School of Economics; Netherlands; CV).
1970 – Paul, A, Samuelson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology; USA; CV), for efforts to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory.
1971 – Simon Kuznets (Harvard University; USA, Ukraine; CV), for developing concept of using a country’s gross national product to determine its economic growth.
1972 – Kenneth J. Arrow (Harvard University; USA; CV) and Sir John R. Hicks (Oxford; UK; CV), for theories that help to assess business risk and government economic and welfare policies.
1973 – Wassily Leontief (Harvard University; USA, Russia; CV), for devising the input-output technique to determine how different sectors of an economic, social and institutional phenomena.
1974 – Gunnar Myrdal (Stockholm University; Sweden; CV) and Friedrich A. von Hayek (University of Salzburg; UK, Austria, Germany; CV), for pioneering analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena.
1975 – Leonid V. Kantorovich (Academy of Sciences at Moscow; Russia; CV) and Tjalling C. Koopmans (Yale University; USA, Netherlands; CV), for work on the theory of optimum allocation of resources.
1976 – Milton Friedman (University of Chicago; USA; CV), for work in consumption analysis and monetary history and theory, and for demonstration of complexity of stabilization policy.
1977 – Bertil Ohlin (Stockholm University; Sweden; CV) and James E. Meade (University of Cambridge; UK; CV), for contributions to theory of international trade and international capital movements.
1978 – Herbert A. Simon (Carnegie Mellon University; USA; CV), for research into the decision-making process within economic organizations.
1979 – Sir Arthur Lewis (Princeton University; UK, Saint-Lucia; CV) and Theodore Schultz (University of Chicago; USA; CV), for work on economic problems of developing nations.
1980 – Lawrence R. Klein (University of Pennsylvania; USA; CV), for developing models for forecasting economic trends and shaping policies to deal with them.
1981 – James Tobin (Yale University; USA; CV), for analyses of financial markets and their influence on spending and saving by families and businesses.
1982 – George J. Stigler (University of Chicago; USA; CV), for work on government regulation in the economy and the functioning of industry
1983 – Gérard Debreu (University of California, Berkeley; USA, France; CV), in recognition of his work on the basic economic problem of how prices operate to balance what producers supply with what buyers want.
1984 – Sir Richard Stone (University of Cambridge; UK; CV), for his work to develop the systems widely used to measure the performance of national economics.
1985 – Franco Modigliani (Massachusetts Institute of Technology; USA, Italy; CV), for his pioneering work in analyzing the behavior of household savers and the functioning of financial markets.
1986 – James M. Buchanan (Center for Study of Public Choice, Fairfax, VA; USA; CV), for his development of new methods for analyzing economic and political decision-making.
1987 – Robert M. Solow (Massachusetts Institute of Technology; USA; CV), for seminal contributions to the theory of economic growth.
1988 – Maurice Allais (École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris; France; CV), for his pioneering development of theories to better understand market behavior and the efficient use of resources.
1989 – Trygve Haavelmo (University of Oslo; Norway; CV), for his pioneering work in methods for testing economic theories.
1990 – Harry M. Markowitz (City University of New York, NY; USA; CV), William F. Sharpe (Stanford University; USA; CV), and Merton H. Miller (University of Chicago; USA; CV), whose work provided new tools for weighing the risks and rewards of different investments and for valuing corporate stocks and bonds.
1991 – Ronald Coase (University of Chicago; USA, UK; CV), for his pioneering work in how property rights and the cost of doing business affect the economy.
1992 – Gary S. Becker (University of Chicago; USA; CV), for “having extended the domain of economic theory to aspects of human behavior which had previously been dealt with-if at all-by other social science disciplines”.
1993 – Robert W. Fogel (University of Chicago; USA; CV) and Douglass C. North (Washington University; USA; CV), for their work in economic history.
1994 – John F. Nash (Princeton University; USA; CV), John C. Harsanyi (University of California, Berkeley; USA, Hungary; CV), and Reinhard Selten (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn; Germany; CV), for their pioneering work in game theory.
1995 – Robert E. Lucas, Jr. (University of Chicago; USA; CV), for having and the greatest influence on macroeconomic research since 1970.
1996 – James A. Mirrlees (University of Cambridge; UK; CV) and William Vickrey (Columbia University; USA, Canada; CV), for their fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives.
1997 – Robert C. Merton (Harvard University; USA; CV) and Myron S. Scholes (Long Term Capital Management, Greenwich, CT; USA, Canada; CV), for developing a formula that determines the value to stock options and other derivatives.
1998 – Amartya Sen (Trinity College, Cambridge; India, UK; CV), for his contributions to welfare economics.
1999 – Robert A, Mundell (Columbia University; Canada, USA; CV), for his work on monetary dynamics and optimum currency areas.
2000 – James J. Heckman (University of Chicago; USA; CV) and Daniel L. McFadden (University of California, Berkeley; USA; CV), for developing methods used in statistical analysis of individual and household behavior.
2001 – George A. Akerlof (University of California, Berkeley; USA; CV), A. Michael Spence (Stanford University; USA; CV), and Joseph E. Stiglitz (Columbia University; USA; CV), for market analyses with asymmetric information.
2002 – Daniel Kahneman (Princeton University; USA, Israel; CV), for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science; Vernon L. Smith (George Mason University; USA; CV), for having established laboratory experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis.
2003 – Robert F. Engle III (New York University; USA; CV) and Clive W.J. Granger (University of California, San Diego; UK, USA; CV) for developing the statistical tools for stock prices.
2004 – Finn. E. Kydland (Carnegie Mellon University & University of Santa Barbara; Norway, USA; CV) and Edward C. Prescott (Arizona State University & Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis; USA; CV) for their contribution in macroeconomics.
2005 – Robert Aumann (University of Jerusalem; Israel, Germany; CV) and Thomas Schelling (University of Maryland; USA; CV) for their contribution to Game Theory.
2006 – Edmund S. Phelps (Columbia University; USA; CV), for his analysis of intertemporal tradeoffs in macroeconomic policy”.
2007 – Leonid Hurwicz (University of Minnesota; USA, Poland, Russia; CV), Eric S. Maskin (Princeton University; USA; CV), and Roger B. Myerson (University of Chicago; USA; CV) for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory.
2008 – Paul Krugman (Princeton University; USA; CV), for his work on international trade and the benefits trade brings to local communities.
2009 – Elinor Ostrom (Indiana University & Arizona State University; USA; CV) for her work on economic governance, particularly in managing Commons, and Oliver E. Williamson (University of California, Berkeley; USA; CV) for his work on the economics and economic boundaries of firms and companies
And here a prediction list of winners for this year from the Harvard University Economics Department website, thanks to well-known Professor Greg Mankiw’s blog for this link:
1 – Robert Barro (Harvard University) – 10.3%
2 – Martin Weitzman (Harvard University) – 5.5%
3 – Paul Romer (Stanford University) – 4.9%
4 – Jean Tirole *Université de Toulouse) – 4.9%
5 – Peter A. Diamond (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) – 4.2%
6 – Robert Shiller (Yale University) – 4.2%
7 – Alberto Alesina (Harvard University) – 3.6%
8 – Lars Peter Hansen (University of Chicago) – 3.6%
9 – Paul Milgrom (Stanford University) – 3.6%
10 – Richard Thaler (University of Chicago)- 3.6%
As you can from this list, Peter A. Diamond ranked 5th on this list was one of the winners, all the other ones non-winners will still be top contenders next year unless they die.
Conclusion
Anyway, for those who didn’t really know about these researchers, it is simply a good moment to read more about who they are, for the other ones, maybe it’s a good opportunity to humanize these authors by watching their Nobel Prize speech.
Have a nice one,
Jean-Francois
