According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, David Card was awarded the 2021 Economic Science Prize “for his empirical contribution to labor economics”. And Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens were awarded “for their methodological contributions to the analysis of cause and effect relationships.”
This year’s laureates, according to the Swedish Academy’s decision, “provided us with a new understanding of the labor market and showed us what inferences about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experimentation. Their approach has expanded to other fields and revolutionized empirical research. “
Canadian-American economist David Card is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences since 2021. He has made fundamental contributions to research on immigration, education, job training and inequality. Much of David Card’s work focuses on comparing the United States and Canada in different situations. In particular, Card’s research showed that the economic impact of new immigrants is minimal. Card has conducted several case studies on the rapid assimilation of immigrant groups, finding that they have little or no impact on local wages and pose no threat to the labor market. In an interview with The New York Times, Card argued: “I believe that economic arguments against immigration are of secondary importance. They are almost irrelevant. “
Another laureate of this year is Joshua Angrist. Although he was born in Ohio, he is called an American-Israeli economist because he worked in both the United States and Israel. He is one of the world’s leading experts in labor economics, urban economics and educational economics. Angrist is famous for using quasi-experimental research schemes to study the effects of public policies and changes in economic or social circumstances. He is a co-founder and co-director of the MIT Schools Efficiency and Inequality Initiative, which studies the relationship between human capital and income inequality in the United States.
Two countries can also apply for Guido Wilhelmus Imbens – the Netherlands and the United States. The economist has been professor of economics at Stanford Graduate Business School since 2012, and has taught at Harvard University, UCLA and UC Berkeley. Imbens specializes in econometrics and, in particular, in methods of constructing cause-effect relationships. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017. Imbens is married to the economist Susan Eti – this year, the authors of the forecasts, by the way, predicted her as a possible winner of the economic “Nobel”.
Traditionally, on the eve of the announcement of the names of the winners in the media and academia, there have been speculations about this year’s winners. According to experts interviewed by AFP news agency, the most popular topics were macroeconomics, health care and labor markets.
Predicting the winner accurately is not an easy task, as the committee can choose from a variety of economists.
But this year, at least two of the awardees have been cited as favorites in a number of predictions. It has been argued that Joshua Angrist will be the laureate – and possibly in company with Canadian labor economist David Card. So in this part, the predictions came true.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is responsible for selecting the economics laureates from among the candidates recommended by the Economics Prize Committee. The committee that reviews nominations and selects final candidates has traditionally been five members, but for many years it has had additional members who have the same voting rights as members.
“There are about 250-300 serious candidates,” wrote Hubert Fromlet, an affiliate professor at the University of Linnaeus in Sweden, in an article predicting potential winners.
Given that the entire selection process, including nominations, took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, marketing professor at the Stockholm School of Economics Mikael Dahlen suggested that it would be “very relevant” to focus on an economist like Paul Slovic. This professor of psychology at the University of Oregon studied how people weigh risks and introduced the concept of “mental numbness,” the indifference that can occur when people are faced with immense disaster.
If we talk about the field of macroeconomics, then, from the point of view of Michael Dahlen, the award in 2021 is awarded to the American economist, professor of economics at Auburn University Roger W. Garrison, who belongs to the so-called “Austrian School of Economics” and who offered an original graphic interpretation of the theory of capital and the money cycle.
According to Clarivate Clarivate Analytics, which maintains a list of potential Nobel Prize winners, Nobuhiro Kiyotaki from Japan and his co-author John Moore from the UK are among the potential macroeconomists worthy of the award.
In the context of the financial crisis, American Douglas Diamond was also named as a potential candidate for the economic Nobel -2021.
Also in the forecasts caught the attention of French economists Olivier Blanchard, a former chief economist at the IMF, and Thomas Piketty, best known for his book Capital in the 21st Century. But given the controversy over Piketty’s conclusions, Hubert Fromlet said, awarding him would be a “controversial choice.”
Nobel Week 2021 earned only one woman a fortune on Monday morning. And based on this gender bias, some observers named a number of female names worthy of the prestigious award.
In particular, was named 87-year-old American Anne Kruger, who previously ranked second and for some time served as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the post of former Vice President for Economics and Research at the World Bank.
Another American woman, Claudia Goldin, whose research focuses on inequality and the female workforce, was also highly praised by experts.
Other potential recipients named in the forecasts include American Janet Curry (author of works on the impact of government programs to combat poverty on children), Belgian economist specializing in labor relations, Marianne Bertrand, and American microeconomist Susan Eti, who became the first woman to receive the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal in 2007 (although she did not receive the 2021 prize, her husband Guido Imbens became the winner).
The history of the award has so far included the names of only two women laureates – Elinor Ostrom (2009) and Esther Duflot (she became the youngest of those awarded in the field of economics in 2019 – at that time she was 46 years old). The oldest remains the 90-year-old Moscow-born American economist Leonid Gurvich (2007).
In total, from 1969 to 2020, the award was made 52 times, and 86 people became laureates of the prize in economics. At the same time, in 20 cases the prize was divided between two awardees (this happened last year, when the Americans Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson were awarded “for improving the theory of auctions and inventing new auction formats”). And in eight (taking into account 2021) cases, the award was divided into three.
From our compatriots, in 1973, the creator of the theory of intersectoral analysis, an American economist of Russian origin, a graduate of Leningrad University, Vasily Leontiev, became a laureate. And in 1975 the Soviet scientist Leonid Kantorovich received the award for his “contribution to the theory of optimal resource allocation”.
The Nobel Prize in Economics holds a special place among other awards, since it did not arise at the behest of Alfred Nobel himself, but was established by the Bank of Sweden in 1968 in honor of its 300th anniversary and in memory of the Swedish industrialist. In its entirety, it has a rather cumbersome title: “The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.”
Some members of the Nobel family generally oppose the existence of such an award. Ill-wishers generally dubbed it a “false Nobel Prize.” But its “secondary nature” did not prevent it from proving its viability for more than half a century, and quite harmoniously fit into the “Nobel context.” The ceremony of awarding this prize is broadcast live on the official website of the Nobel Foundation (nobelprize.org), and the pre-pandemic laureates received a diploma, a gold medal and a monetary award from the hands of the King of Sweden at a ceremony held in Stockholm annually on December 10 on the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel.
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