Benjamin of the Nobel, the economics prize closes the season of famous prizes this Monday, with specialists in work, poverty or even altruism cited among the possible winners, at a time when a global recession is looming. The American Claudia Goldin, Harvard professor and specialist in labor and economic history, is the one consented to obtain the reward, announced at 11:45 (09:45 GMT) in Stockholm.
The only one not provided for in Alfred Nobel’s will, this prize created by the Swedish Central Bank “in memory” of the inventor was added in 1969 to the five traditional prizes (medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace), earning the nickname of “fake Nobel” among his detractors.
Only two winners in the history of the economics award
In the context of a global inflation wave and the energy crisis in Europe, the Nobel committee should ditch the monetary policy specialists, says Hubert Fromlet, a professor at Sweden’s Linné University. “Monetary policy has failed so much, and there is no good theoretician who has done it right, so to speak,” says the academic, who keeps a list of Nobel laureates in economics. Like others, he considers Claudia Goldin, whose name has been circulating for several years, as the favorite for an award that has so far crowned only two women out of a total of 89 winners.
American Elinor Ostrom (2009) and French-American Esther Duflo (2019) are the only women to have won the award so far. “I would almost be disappointed if no women were among the winners,” says Hubert Fromlet. The name of one of the labor economists, the Belgian Marianne Bertrand, is also evoked, as well as the American-Canadian Janet Currie, a specialist in anti-poverty policies, or the American Anne Krueger, former Banque mondiale et du International Monetary Fund.
Development economics in vogue
According to David Pendlebury, a relevant co-winner of the award along with Claudia Goldin would be the British Richard Blundell, another labor specialist but from an economic point of view. The expert also cites the American octogenarians Sam Bowles and Herbert Gintis, two specialists in altruistic cooperation whose work contrasts with the principles of individualism of classical theory.
Enough to compete with the Frenchman Thomas Piketty, author of the international bestseller “Capital in the 21st Century” and a specialist in wealth inequalities, mentioned so many times in recent years.
Development economics and his work in poor countries would also be a good choice, according to Hubert Fromlet. Last year, Canadian-American David Card, Israeli-American Joshua Angrist and Dutch-American Guido Imbe were crowned for their work in experimental economics.
Source: BFM TV
