Courtesy of Banx at the FT

Back at the keyboard after a hectic late summer which included getting a final sign-off on the thesis, so that is all done, dusted and deposited in the university library. And what a day to be back. In a few hours they will announce who is going to win the Prize for Economics in memory of Alfred Nobel, and if Fama gets it this year I think it will be good fun. He was odds on favourite two years ago, but since the crash and recession all odds are off.

Harvard even had an on-line pool, but had to shut it down due to legal reasons. Oh well, we’ll know in a few hours. Either way, we’re back to our blogging ways now that term has properly started and there can be no more conference distractions.

Unfortunately, we have been advised by Harvard University to immediately shut down the Nobel pool due to legal reasons, and we have decided to comply with this request. We will fully reimburse the money of all participants, and we apologize for any inconvenience this creates for you. All participants will be contacted by email. (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~pollmann/nobel/)

This Monday, at 1pm CET, (11am GMT or 7am EST), the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics will be awarded – but to whom? Our department will this year get everyone together and see the press conference live, and then hopefully listen to the cheers as a students out-guesses a professor… Maybe.

I wonder – who do you think will be on that list. I am thinking about it and will send my guesses tomorrow, but I am curious. I don’t see how a financial economist (of any bent) can get the prize this year, and I do not think the time is right for the modern ‘macro’ guys. Last year, after the crisis, Krugman picked it up. After the dot-com bubble burst it also went to people outside the ‘mainstream’ nominations  - 2001: Stiglitz and also Akerlof’s melons, 2002: Kahneman. Amartya Sen picked it up right after the Asian Collapse (in 1998), while historians Robert Fogel and Douglass North got it after the 1992 European collapse.

I am not suggesting that the committee doesn’t consider a scholars impact – all of the named people have been highly influential – it just seems that in times of crisis the nominations fall outside the usual suspects?

Could it be time for Benoit Mandelbroit? Axel Leijonhufvud? Deirdre McCloskey? Ben Bernanke? Nouriel Roubini? or is it back to the bookies who seem to be favouring Eugene Fama (2/1) [Ladbrokes], Paul Romer (4/1), Ernst Fehr, Kenneth R. French, William Nordhaus (6/1), Robert Barro (7/1) and further down we find Avinash Dixit, Jagdish N. Bhagwati and Robert Schiller all at 14/1.