The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences ends the annual round of prestigious awards. The selection is carried out in strict secrecy. All that can be done in advance is guesswork.
Who has made such contributions to the world of economics that he or she deserves a Nobel Prize? Leading economists in Germany have clear favorites.
Daron Acemoglu
Daron Acemoglu, who teaches in the USA, uses his research to show how important social institutions are for the prosperity of a country. “I think that given the importance of the debate about technological change, the time has come for Daron Acemoglu,” says Moritz Schularick, President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Marcel Fratzscher, President of the German Institute for Economic Research, also considers Acemoglu a worthy winner. The author and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) shows through his work “how important institutions are not only for an economy, but also how crucial they are for democracy.”
Andrei Shleifer
In addition to Acemoglu, Fratzscher also names Andrei Shleifer as a favorite. The much-quoted economist researches at Harvard University and has also published several books – including on Russia. “The two economists connect important areas of the social sciences and can help explain the weakening of Western democracies over the past decades,” says Fratzscher, referring to Shleifer and Acemoglu.
Janet Currie
Janet Currie also conducts research in the USA – at Princeton University. She is the favorite of Clemens Fuest, President of the Ifo Institute. Fuest praises Currie “for her groundbreaking research on the connection between economics, child development and mental health.” This is also about socioeconomic differences in access to health care or insurance.
So far a German prize winner
The Nobel Prize in Economics is the only Nobel Prize that does not go back to the will of dynamite inventor and prize donor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896). It has been sponsored by the Swedish Reichsbank since the late 1960s and is therefore, strictly speaking, not one of the classic Nobel Prizes. Nevertheless, it will be ceremoniously presented together with the other awards on the anniversary of Nobel’s death, December 10th.
The only German Nobel Prize winner in economics to date has been the Bonn scientist Reinhard Selten. He received the award in 1994 together with John Nash and John Harsanyi for their pioneering contributions to non-cooperative game theory.
Source: Stern