Economics Nobel bleg

Tyler Cowen rounds up the chatter around the Eco Nobel. Here's WSJ, and here are the Thomson Reuters predictions. Northwestern has its own list too - it leans heavily towards the Industrial Organization & New Institutional Economics side of affairs. Both good, but rewarded in the recent past.

My contention is, if Jean Tirole and/or Oliver Hart are awarded, so will/should Bengt Holmstrom. Oliver Hart is a forerunner for the incomplete contracts view of the theory of the firm, Holmstrom has done masterful work on the disaggregation of the liquidity and the the connections between corporate finance & macroeconomic phenomena, culminating in what he calls the Liquidity-based Asset Pricing Model. This line of research is extremely promising, and yet to be fully exploited.

But if IO/NIE does not win, the prize really should go to Angus Deaton. Deaton is among the foremost authorities on consumption, inequality & poverty in developing countries, and a lot of his research focuses on India. If you wish to educate yourself on modern interpretations of the challenge of poverty & development in India, Deaton really is person you should listen to. His lack of an axe in the cacophonous debates on this helps- he seems to be intellectually compatible with both Surjit Bhalla & Jean Dreze, something that most Indian readers will find unbelievable.

The American finance gurus - Fama, Shiller, Thaler & Ross are all deserving, but I know who I'm rooting for.