Dignified Nobel Prize Winners and Research Areas

As most readers of my blog probably suspected, I cannot completely refrain from making some further comments apart from those I already made to the press. Elinor Ostrom’s research on the positive management of common property by user associations may, for example, be helpful when dealing with environmental issues on a local or regional level. Williamson’s organizational and institutional research contributes, for example, to a better understanding why firms many times may prefer vertical integration.

¤ Both this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics and their research areas (organizing/organization) were strongly recommended in my latest blog. This is nice again because I was forecasting at least one name correctly seven times out of ten in the past decade (but I should be humble). This claimed quite some reading concerning research results that were achieved some 20-30 years ago and that are still relevant for current research and studies. Doing this kind of studies is not only fun but it improves also my own conditions for studies and teaching.

¤ I am happy with the professors Elinor Ostrom(Indiana) and Oliver Williamson(Berkeley) who will receive the highest economic award in Stockholm on December 10. But I feel somewhat sorry about Jean Tirole (Toulouse) – one of the leading European economists below 65 years – since Tirole to a high extent deals with organizational issues as well (though mainly from other angles). However, Tirole’s time still may come.

¤ I also feel happy about the fact that interdisciplinary research (by sociologist Elinor Ostrom) gets more appreciation which I have been pleading for during quite some years. Our economic world has become by far too complex that we can afford to neglect other research disciplines that have an impact on the economy such as psychology, sociology, politics, law and regulations, health and the environment. The ideal world of the classical “homo oeconomicus” does not exist anymore (even if Milton Friedman once wrote that the results of modeling not necessarily have to be in line with reality).

¤ After many years of pointing at the absence of women in the list of Nobel Prize winners and at the fact that only a few women had major scientific breakthroughs some twenty years ago, I notice with satisfaction that Elinor Ostrom since several years ago was on my list of thinkable female Nobel Prize winners (and Oliver Williamson, by the way, from the very beginning of that list).

¤ Looking at interesting areas for next year’s selection, research on labor markets, modern growth theory, finance and modeling techniques could become particularly relevant. This year, my wish of awarding a dignified woman became verified. For 2010, I am particularly hoping for a European Nobel Prize winner. European economic research is catching up.

I will get back to all these Nobel Prize issues in the beginning of October 2010.