Scholarly Comments on Academic Economics

Who Should Get the Nobel Prize in Economics, and Why? A Call for Proposals

Updated 1 Oct 2022

Econ Journal Watch invites proposals to write an essay on who should get the Nobel prize in economics, and why. The aim is not to canvass for opinion about who should get the prize, but to generate essay-form appreciations of the work of individual economists.

Thus far we have published two such articles, one on Edward Leamer and one on Lawrence Summers.

Send your proposal to write an essay explaining why Person A should receive a Nobel prize in economics to Jason Briggeman (EJW Managing Editor), at jason@briggeman.org. We also welcome mere queries in such direction.

Some guidelines:

  • Proposers should be qualified to explain the merit of the work of Person A.
  • As we know, the prize sometimes goes to a person in the social sciences but not strictly economics, and in this project we certainly share that spirit.
  • The essay about Person A could be written by multiple authors.
  • We think it fine if the authors cooperate with Person A in producing and drafting the essay; any such cooperation may go acknowledged or unacknowledged, as the parties involved see fit.
  • The essay should aim to touch on all of Person A’s work, though it is fine of course to focus on the contributions that are especially thought to make Person A worthy of the prize.
  • The essay should be candid about significant shortcomings of A’s most important contributions, and significant criticisms.
  • We welcome proposals about Person A regardless of his or her ideological orientation. Proposers may expect ideological outlook to play no role in approving proposals.
  • We shall need to be selective about the Person A. Although not every Person A needs to be regarded by us as an actually conceivable prospective prize-winner, we do need to regard the Person A as sufficiently eminent, accomplished, or interesting to warrant such attention.
  • The case for Person A may involve justification “outside the box” of what we may think of as normal criteria for a Nobel prize in economics. Such unconventional justification for Person A is not unwelcome, but it may itself call for some justification within the essay.