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Nobel Economics Prize Winners to Be Named

Posted on: Monday, 10 October 2005, 00:00 CDT

By MATT MOORE

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Since 1999, the annual Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences has found just one non-American laureate, and even he was a Norwegian who did most of his work in the United States.

Ahead of Monday's announcement of the 2005 prize, Nobel watchers, pundits and others aren't surprised if such American dominance continues.

That's no surprise, with even the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences claiming that because of the money spent for research on economics and trends in the United States, it's only fitting that the research and ideas come from there.

The prize is also one of the most difficult to forecast.

Paul Romer of Stanford University, who won the 2002 Horst Claus Recktenwald Prize in Economics, has been mentioned for his efforts in developing the New Growth Theory, which has provided new foundations for businesses and governments trying to create wealth.

The theory was developed in the 1980s as a response to criticism of the neo-classical growth model.

Another name has been that of Thomas J. Sargent of New York University, a leader of the rational expectations theory, which is used to determine future events by economic acts.

Also among those being touted for this year's prize is Jagdish Bhagwati, a noted proponent of free trade and critic of opponents of globalization. The Indian-born Columbia economics professor was an external adviser to the World Trade Organization and served as a special policy adviser on globalization to the United Nations.

Last year's winners were Edward C. Prescott, an Arizona State University professor and Norwegian Finn E. Kydland, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who won for their research on how government policies affect economies around the world and why supply-side shocks like high oil prices can dampen business cycles.

Past awards have honored men - no woman has ever won the prize - for research on topics ranging from poverty and famine to how multinational corporations reap profits, and theories on how people choose jobs and the welfare losses caused by environmental catastrophes.

The economics prize, worth 10 million kronor (euro1 million; US$1.3 million), is the only award not established in the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. The medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace prizes were first awarded in 1901, while the economics prize was set up separately by the Swedish central bank in 1968.

This year's Nobel Prize announcements began Oct. 3 with the prize in physiology or medicine going to Australians Barry J. Marshall and Robin Warren for proving that bacteria and not stress was the main cause of painful ulcers of the stomach and intestine.

On Tuesday, Americans John L. Hall and Roy J. Glauber and German Theodor W. Haensch won the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics for their work in advancing the precision of optic technology, which could improve communication worldwide and help spacecraft navigate more accurately to the stars.

On Wednesday, France's Yves Chauvin and Americans Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock won the 2005 Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for discoveries that let industry develop drugs and plastics more efficiently and with less hazardous waste.

Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their drive to curb the spread of atomic weapons by using diplomacy to resolve standoffs with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs.

So far, the Swedish Academy, which awards the literature prize, has not set a date for its announcement.

The Nobel prizes are presented Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of their founder. The peace prize is awarded in Oslo, and the other Nobel prizes are presented in the Swedish capital, Stockholm.

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On the Net:

http://www.nobelprize.org

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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