Nobel Prize selection

 

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Which Economists Should Have Gotten Nobels Before They Died?

"None of them won the profession’s ultimate honor, however, even though all were deserving. As more and more deserving economists move into their 70s, 80s, and 90s, I can only hope this list doesn’t get longer." ~ Art Carden

Vernon L. Smith

May 15 at 4:30 PM  · 

Here is an excellent discussion--necessarily speculative--of also-ran and recognition-worthy Nobel's in economics. Since the Bank of Sweden Prize in economics was added in 1969 (amid some controversy and opposition), 68 years after the foundation had been established, there was a lot of congestion. Hayek's (1974) has been said to be controversial; that pairing him with Gunner Myrdal helped to diffuse it. According to Sylvia Nasar (Beautiful Mind) John Nash was controversial because of his long mental illness and concern that he might be an embarrassment in Stockholm, a speculation without substance, as Nash was a model of good deportment. Watch his bow to the King, Academy and audience in that order at the ceremony. American's do it terribly, and I used John as my model in 2002. She also reports, based on off-the-record interviews in Sweden, that the economics committee so feared that the Swedish Academy would vote to reject him that they had a back-up candidate in the person of Amos Tversky, implying that he was their second choice.

Hutt, whom I am embarrassed to say I never read until some of my friends were acclaiming him, would surely have been a candidate except that he would not have been judged sufficiently influential.

In my view Gordon Tulloch was an egregious error. (I indicate why in Vol II of my autobiography.)

I would have recognized Reinhard Selten in experimental economics. The problem, I suspect, is that he had already been recognized in Game Theory along with Nash but I do not think that is relevant.

A topic that has not been recognized is "The Economics of Survival." Alchian was a founder but erred in arguing that it was part of profit maximization. Roy Radner in a series of papers with various co-authors have shown that this is false. Roy generalizes the original "Gamblers' Ruin" problem (that led to the ground-breaking papers introducing utility theory) asking what investment strategies would maximize the probability of never going bankrupt. Below a critical level of wealth, a survivor would invest in higher variance rather than lower variance prospects with the same expected return. The switch does not imply suddenly becoming risk loving; its because its best for maximizing survival probability.