Economic Nobel Prize 2021: Will the award go back to the USA?

It is the annual conclusion of the announcements: on Monday at around 11:45 a.m. it will be announced who will receive the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Stockholm - The announcement of this year's Nobel Prizes will end on Monday (11.10.2021) at 11.45 a.m. in Stockholm with the award in the economics category.

In contrast to the other prizes, the Nobel Prize for Economics does not go back directly to the will of the prize founder Alfred Nobel.

Economics are said to never have been worthy of prizes to the chemist.

The Nobel Prize for Economics was donated in 1968 by the Swedish Reichsbank, which basically gave itself a gift for its 300th birthday.

Strictly speaking, the Nobel Prize for Economics is not considered a classic Nobel Prize, even if it was donated “in memory of Alfred Nobel”.

Economic Nobel Prize: Names only appear in the appendix

However, as with the Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry, the winners are nominated by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and will be presented as part of the entire award ceremony on the anniversary of Nobel's death on December 10th.

However, their names appear in the list only in an appendix and are engraved on the edge of the Nobel medal instead of on the surfaces.

In 1994, the Bonn scientist Reinhard Selten was the only German to receive the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Seldom was honored together with John Nash and John Harsanyi for their groundbreaking contributions to non-cooperative game theory.

In 2020, the award went to US economists Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson, who were honored for their improvements in auction theory and the invention of new auction formats.

Economic Nobel Prize 2021: Will the award go back to the USA?

This time too, the favorites of many German economists come from overseas, including the former US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

The head of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Marcel Fratzscher, would consider the three US scientists Bernanke, Mark Gertler and Michael Woodford to be an “excellent” choice.

Achim Wambach, President of the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW), advocated the Americans Timothy Bresnahan and Michael Porter and the Israeli-American economist Ariel Pakes.

The head of the Munich Ifo Institute, Clemens Fuest, on the other hand, favored the Austrian-Swiss economist Ernst Fehr in advance.

He made groundbreaking contributions in experimental economic research and behavioral research.

Nobel Prize in Economics: the award winners of the past few years

Nobel Prizes 2021: Hasselmann and List honored

The Nobel Prize winners in the categories of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace had already been announced last week.

Among the chosen were two Germans, the meteorologist Klaus Hasselmann in physics * and the chemist Benjamin List *.

(cs / dpa)