Nobel Prize | Random Observations for Students of Economics

Fed News

Economics Comments Off

Mar 092011

I am personally saddened by this decision, for Peter is a very smart guy and a highly accomplished economist, as well as a former teacher of mine. There is no doubt in my mind that Peter was fully deserving of the Nobel Prize. But I have to admit that, given Senator Shelby’s political preferences regarding economic policy, his reasons for blocking the nomination to the Federal Reserve Board are not wholly unreasonable. Click through to the link above (or here) to read the Senator’s explanation.

Ec 10 Nobel Trivia

Economics Comments Off

Oct 112010

From my inbox:

Professor Mankiw,

I took Ec 10 during my freshman year, 1979-1980. It may not be obvious from his profile, but today’s Nobel Prize winner Chris Pissarides taught my Ec 10 section that year during his one-year visit to Harvard. So tell your current students that the section leader they are struggling to understand through accented English may someday be a Nobel prize winner.

I read your blog and my son’s college class uses your textbook.

Regards,

[name withheld] ‘83

Predicting Honors

Economics Comments Off

Dec 012009

In a new NBER working paper, Daniel Hamermesh and Gerard Pfann estimate the probability that an economist will be honored by his peers (by receiving a Nobel Prize, being elected President of the American Economic Association, being named a Distinguished Fellow of the AEA, or winning the AEA’s Clark Medal).

The bottom line: An economist’s citation ranking is a strong predictor. Given citations, an economist’s number of publications has no additional predictive value for whether he will obtain such an honor.

FYI, here is an up-to-date citation ranking of more than 20,000 economists.

Random Observations for Students of Economics