I can’t believe there is much demand for it, but the online betting site Pinnacle Sports is taking wagers on this year’s Nobel Prize in economics. Here are the odds they are offering as of my writing this post:
101 Martin Feldstein +751
102 Thomas Sargent +1181
103 Robert Barro +1341
104 Paul Romer +1344
105 Jagdish Bhagwati +1359
106 Paul Krugman +1617
107 N. Gregory Mankiw +4310
108 Any other person -136
My hunch is that the bargain here is “any other person.” There is plenty of randomness in the choices each year, and this list excludes a number of people who I would think would be on the short list, e.g. Gene Fama, Peter Diamond, Oliver Hart, and Richard Posner, just to name a few.
I have a colleague who told me some time back that he had identified a strong leading indicator of economists who think they are on the short list for winning the prize: getting a haircut the week before the Nobel is announced. He claims to have many data points supporting his theory.
The economics Nobel is announced Monday. If I’m not mistaken, this very colleague is sporting a snazzy new haircut.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Paul Krugman? I’ll take “other”, thank you.
I’m surprised that the total vig only adds up to 6%.
I beleive that is the same Paul Krugman of textbook fame, who makes my job grading a pain. Go Mankiw!
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics is worthless, as recently evidenced by the utter failure of many of the grand theories that have been spouted out by the laureates. Read the acceptance speech of Friedrich Hayek, one of the very few who actually deserved the award (and also wanted it abolished): http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1974/hayek-lecture.html
I think if Barro wins it should be shared with Summers and Heston.
Econometricians are absent from the list, which might be dangerous given that it’s five years since Engle and Granger. I’m not a Bayesian but I suspect that Zellner might be in with a shot.
#4 PDB
As a fervent disciple of the information asymmetry work done by Akerlof and Stiglitz (2001 Nobel), I say shame on you, sir!
‘Course, no one’s figured out what to do with it yet, thus limiting its practical value… but still!
what? no Bernanke? uh oh, we must really be in deep kimshe
What a useless exercise. The field is too large for a single prize – I hope that the prize is given this year to someone who helped us learn how to measure risk. This person should share the prize with whoever made the observation that there is a downside to taking a gamble.