I'm a little surprised to see Bhagwati, Krueger and Krugman among the options. They are extremely able mainstream economists, but their work doesn't strike me as pathbreaking in any real sense.
I'd like to see red-diaper baby Baumol get it: he deserves it for a truly impressive body of work in microeconomics; there was a time when neoclassical theory wasn't a totally bankrupt ideological enterprise, and it looked to many people like the best game in town for fixing real problems. Those days are long gone, of course, but Baumol, a humane and decent man, carried the tradition probably as far as anyone could in the direction of applying the theory to real-world problems. I also appreciate his respect for intellectual history. I imagine most economists would now regard the work for which he might get the award as old-fashioned; it probably is, but that is more to the detriment of contemporary mainstream microeconomics than it is to Baumol.
Hirschman, too, would be a worthy choice, though I'm not sure he is a strong contender.
Regards,
Gary
Gary Mongiovi, Co-editor Review of Political Economy Economics & Finance Department St John's University Jamaica, NEW YORK 11439 USA
Tel: +1 (718) 990-7380 FAX: +1 (718) 990-1868 E-mail: mongiovg at stjohns.edu
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 13:58:31 -0400 To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Subject: [lbo-talk] vote on econ nobelist Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
The World Bank is running an online poll - name the winner of this year's Economics Nobel: <http://rru.worldbank.org/nobel2003.asp>. Their leading candidates:
William Baumol Jagdish Bhagwati Arnold Harberger Oliver Hart Albert Hirschman Michael Jensen Janos Kornai Anne Krueger Paul Krugman Richard Posner Thomas Shelling Richard Thaler Oliver Williamson Other
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