The University of Chicago likes to brag about its Nobel laureates. Well, my son’s kindergarten teacher Christina Hayward pulled off a feat that is far tougher statistically than winning the Nobel prize: she took one of ten Golden Apple awards given annually to the most outstanding Chicago-area teachers.
Why do I say it is tougher to win a Golden Apple than a Nobel prize? My rough guess is that there are about 100,000 teachers in the Chicago area. So one in 10,000 teachers wins the prize. By comparison, the pool of people eligible for the Nobel prize in economics is roughly the number of living academic economists over the age of 55 who have ever engaged in serious research. I’d be surprised if there are 10,000 of these folks; and only two or three of them get the Nobel prize every year.
The Golden Apple is tougher to win than the Nobel prize, but unfortunately the payoff isn’t quite as lucrative: $3,000 versus $1 million.
You can read more about Christina here.
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. You can also watch it on 
I disagree with your analysis.
Wouldn’t it be exponentially easier to enter the pool of Chicago teachers compared to entering the economist pool?
What do you mean by “harder”? It’s not a matter of just pulling out of a hat. To be qualified for the Nobel Prize you must put in decades of hard work. Plus, you work is closely scrutinized for years to see if it holds up. To get the teaching prize you need to be a good teacher (or convince someone you are a good teacher) for a relatively short period of time. And, no one checks outcomes. You could be doing things that people think are good but actually damage the kids educations. Especially if there is student reporting components, what a student thinks is good for them and what is good for them could be very different.
I believe your estimates are rather faulty. Why limit NP winners just to economics,
why limit them to just people only in academia,
why to those over 55.
Without also making simmilar limits to the teachers.
Is there an “eligibility criteria” for Nobel Prize? Must one be 55 years of age and be an academic?
I think there may be a little bit of confusion regarding conditional probabilities here (see the recently published article by Bill Easterly on Dani Rodrik and industrial policy).
The Nobel prize is generaly given out to roughly 2/3 people each year within the set of academic economists over the age of 55, and each year to 10 teachers in within Chicago, but what matters to say that the golden apple is harder to get than the nobel is a statement about the unconditional probability. Not he conditional ones outlined above.
Just think how many people who may aspire to be academic economists at age 55 at decent universities and fail, compared to the proportion of people wanting to become teachers and fail. Highy likely that many of the rejected academics may end up becoming teachers.
i agree that it’s harder- to go beyond the creative pale of playing with blocks and snufalufagous (sic?) has to be more inspirational than the self-acclaimed dismal science
I think Dr, Levitt’s comparison is like comparing the heights of Mt Everest and Mauna Kea (on the island of Hawaii) If you start from sea level – Everest is higher, but if you start from the base of the mountain – it’s Mauna Kea.
While only so many 55 year old economists may be eligible, to get to the point of being a 55-year old economists, you had to go from the sea floor to sea level of advanced degree, tenure track, publication, etc.
With so few astronauts out there, I think landing on the moon is probably the easiest thing ever!