Nobel Prize-Winning Contributions to Economics
a course by Marek Hlavac [personal website]
a course by Marek Hlavac [personal website]
Course description: Since it was first awarded in 1969 to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen, dozens of scholars have won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. In this course, we will survey the discipline of economics through the lens of these scholars’ prize-winning contributions and their more recent applications. In doing so, we will explore the building blocks on which today’s economics stands, and will learn a great deal of intellectual history. Along the way, we will see how Nobel prize-winning contributions help explain the world around us, and will ask questions such as: Why are some countries rich, while others are poor? Should you be allowed to sell your kidney? Why do some countries impose very restrictive immigration policies? Is there such a thing as ‘involuntary unemployment’? Can money buy happiness Why do smokers find it so hard to quit? Is foreign aid politically motivated? How should medical school graduates be matched to residency programs? When does it make sense for several countries to use the same currency? Does a country’s political system determine its economic performance? When should the government allow two large companies to merge, and when should it prevent such mergers? Are you correct to suspect that your judgment might be hopelessly out of whack? and many, many others.
Note: This syllabus stems from an undergraduate seminar that I taught in the Department of Economics at Harvard University between 2013 and 2016. I figured it would be a pity to let it die, so I have decided to post it online. I will be regularly updating the syllabus to reflect the most recent Nobel Prizes in Economics. Latest update: 6 July 2019
1992: Gary S. Becker “for having extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behavior and interaction, including non-market behavior”
1974: Gunnar Myrdal and Friedrich August von Hayek “for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena”
1993: Robert W. Fogel and Douglass C. North “for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change”
1991: Ronald H. Coase “for his discovery and clarification of the significance of transaction costs and property rights for the institutional structure and functioning of the economy”
2009: Elinor Ostrom “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons” and Oliver E. Williamson “for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm”
2001: George A. Akerlof, A. Michael Spence, Joseph E. Stiglitz “for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information”
2016: Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström "for their contributions to contract theory"
1994: John C. Harsanyi, John F. Nash Jr., and Reinhard Selten “for their pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games”
2005: Robert J. Aumann, Thomas C. Schelling "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis"
1982: George J. Stigler “for his seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets and causes and effects of public regulation”
2014: Jean Tirole “for his analysis of market power and regulation”
2007: Leonid Hurwitz, Eric S. Maskin, Roger B. Myerson “for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory”
2012: Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley “for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design”
2010: Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen, and Christopher A. Pissarides “for their analysis of markets with search frictions”
2000: James J. Heckman "for his development of theory and methods for analyzing selective samples," and Daniel L. McFadden "for his development of theory and methods for analyzing discrete choice"
2013: Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Robert J. Shiller “for their empirical analysis of asset prices”
1985: Franco Modigliani “for his pioneering analyses of saving and of financial markets”
1990: Harry M. Markowitz, Merton H. Miller, and William F. Sharpe “for their pioneering work in the theory of financial economics”
1997: Robert C. Merton, Myron S. Scholes “for a new method to determine the value of derivatives”
1971: Simon Kuznets “for his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth which has led to a new and deepened insight into the economic and social structure and process of development”
1987: Robert M. Solow “for his contributions to the theory of economic growth”
2018: Paul Romer "for integrating technological innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis"
1999: Robert A. Mundell “for his analysis of monetary and fiscal policy under different exchange rate regimes and his analysis of optimum currency areas”
2008: Paul R. Krugman “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity”
1970: Paul A. Samuelson “for the scientific work through which he has developed static and dynamic economic theory and actively contributed to raising the level of analysis in economic science”
1972: John R. Hicks [shared with Kenneth J. Arrow] “for their pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory”
1976: Milton Friedman “for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy”
2006: Edmund S. Phelps “for his analysis of intertemporal tradeoffs in macroeconomic policy”
1995: Robert E. Lucas, Jr. “for having developed and applied the hypothesis of rational expectations, and thereby having transformed macroeconomic analysis and deepened our understanding of economy policy”
2004: Finn E. Kydland and Edward C. Prescott “for their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles”
2011: Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims “for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy”
1972: John R. Hicks and Kenneth J. Arrow “for their pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory”
1998: Amartya Sen “for his contributions to welfare economics”
2015: Angus Deaton “for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare”
2018: William D. Nordhaus "for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis"
1986: James M. Buchanan, Jr. “for his development of the contractual and constitutional bases for the theory of economic and political decision-making”
2002: Vernon L. Smith [shared with Daniel Kahneman] “for having established laboratory experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis, especially in the study of alternative market mechanisms”
1978: Herbert A. Simon “for his pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations”
2002: Daniel Kahneman [shared with Vernon L. Smith] “for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty”
2017: Richard Thaler "for his contributions to behavioural economics"
About the author: Marek Hlavac teaches economics at UWC Adriatic, an international secondary school in Duino, Italy. He is also a microeconomics instructor in the Summer Program of the Mid-Career Master in Public Administration program at the Harvard Kennedy School. He holds a bachelor's degree in Economics, summa cum laude, from Princeton University, a Master in Public Policy degree from Georgetown University, and a Ph.D. in Political Economy from Harvard University. His personal website is [here].