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By all accounts, the Economics Department at Harvard University is the best department in world, to the point that it gets an almost perfect score on RePEc. Yet, despite such dominance, anyone on its faculty has not received a Nobel prize in a very long time. The last Harvard faculty with a Nobel, Amartya Sen, was hired five years after his 1999 Nobel Prize. The 1998 Prize, Robert Merton, was at the Business School. You have to go all the way back to Wassily Leontief in 1973 to find the next one.
What is the department's problem? One, it could be that it is populated with brilliant people, but the the exceptional ones who merit Nobel Prizes. Two, it could be that the standing of the department in the profession is overvalued. Three, it could be that the rankings are biased in some way, say that Harvard graduates like to cite their mentors. Four, maybe there is some curse.
The 2012 prize is going to be announced tomorrow. Which Harvard Economics faculty have a shot? The most cited economist is Andrei Shleifer. But his unethical behavior makes it impossible for him to get the prize. Robert Barro is also extremely well cited, but his citations are very often about proving him wrong. Alvin Roth is a serious candidate, but just left for Stanford (because of the curse?). Martin Weitzman is a candidate, but if environmental economics gets it, it should first go to William Nordhaus alone. That leaves us, in my mind with only three viable candidates: Oliver Hart, Elhanan Helpman and Martin Feldstein. Given the long list of viable candidates (say, Tirole, Milgrom, Paul Romer, Lars Hansen, Thaler, Robert Wilson, Nordhaus, Holmstrom, Fama, Dixit, Roth, Kiyotaki, Moore, Newhouse, Grossman, Ross, Rabin, Atkinson, Deaton, Shiller, Berry), the odds remain small.
What is the department's problem? One, it could be that it is populated with brilliant people, but the the exceptional ones who merit Nobel Prizes. Two, it could be that the standing of the department in the profession is overvalued. Three, it could be that the rankings are biased in some way, say that Harvard graduates like to cite their mentors. Four, maybe there is some curse.
The 2012 prize is going to be announced tomorrow. Which Harvard Economics faculty have a shot? The most cited economist is Andrei Shleifer. But his unethical behavior makes it impossible for him to get the prize. Robert Barro is also extremely well cited, but his citations are very often about proving him wrong. Alvin Roth is a serious candidate, but just left for Stanford (because of the curse?). Martin Weitzman is a candidate, but if environmental economics gets it, it should first go to William Nordhaus alone. That leaves us, in my mind with only three viable candidates: Oliver Hart, Elhanan Helpman and Martin Feldstein. Given the long list of viable candidates (say, Tirole, Milgrom, Paul Romer, Lars Hansen, Thaler, Robert Wilson, Nordhaus, Holmstrom, Fama, Dixit, Roth, Kiyotaki, Moore, Newhouse, Grossman, Ross, Rabin, Atkinson, Deaton, Shiller, Berry), the odds remain small.
10 comments:
Eric Maskin is also at Harvard. He was at Princeton when he won the Nobel Prize, though
Economiclogic, seminal contributions are those which start a new field, not those which are never disproven. And most of Barro's are major contributions, that's why they were so influential. Every major contribution has been disproven or generalized sooner or later in science. That's how science advances, and that's not a reason for not giving a Nobel.
Except Barro's contributions have been disproved rather quickly. Were it not for the Harvard Newsletter, Barro would never have enjoyed the visibility he has.
Have you ever opened Barro's CV? It's not Barro the Harvard professor who can't publish outside the QJE. You should look somewhere else for that! Most of Barro's contributions are not in the Harvard Newsletter, but in AER, JPE and Econometrica. Idiot. Read something before trashing people online.
so what's now? The official affiliation for Havard as presented by the committee was (rightfully) Harvard. But Roth even answered "when I got the call it was pretty dark here in California", being now at Stanford...
EL, congrats on calling Rioth leaving the Harvard Nobel curse!
The Prize to Roth and Shapley is well deserved. Note that Roth is still at Harvard, but on leave, and retiring from there at the end of the year.
And, Vilfredo, yes, Roth is a riot.
Sen and Maskin had been at Harvard before winning prizes (and coming back). Harvard has a great record of people leaving after winning the prize (including Leontief and Kenneth Arrow (who was there when I arrived)).
Ethics issues should not be related to Nobel prizes in the sciences, and economics should be a science (Heisenberg had some ethical issues too -- he said he would never have lied to Hitler to prevent him from making an Atomic bomb). Also Andrei's alleged ethical issues are utter total nonsense. They were not Harvard's main problem with the Moscow research thingy Andrei ran. Sure he settled (for pocket change) just to end the hassle.
In the real sciences, Nobel prizes are awarded for theory only if the theory yields a striking prediction which is confirmed.
Starting a field is a matter of fashion. Do you think that Stephenie Meyer (Twilight etc) should get the literature prize. She sure started a literature of teen vampire romance. Of course I am not saying the literatures started by Barro are at the same level (I much prefer teen vampire romances).
I am fairly sure Barro knows his papers can be refuted. In the famous Ricardian equivalence paper, there are about 10 footnotes explaining why there isn't Ricardian equivalence. Hence 10 instant cites (actually 50).
I once heard Barro tell Alberto Alessina "Sometimes a critical cite is worth more than a postivie one. I mean I'm must speaking from casual empiricisms heh heh." (This really happened). He knows what he is doing.
Aonymous2. As you have looked at Barro's CV, I'm sure you know the topic of the first paper on it. IIRC it is about The structure of the BiChromate Chrystal.
I landed here from Matt Yglesias' twitter feed, and let me tell you this is an awesome blog. I am going to waste my whole day on it.
The rumor from a conference in Stochholm this summer is that Barro, Lucas and Romer will get it for growth theory.
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