Meh, Hayek received it because the committee wanted to give the prize to Keynes.
Keynes was dead, but fortunately the Stockholm school of economics claimed to have developed Keynesianism independently of Keynes. Gunnar Myrdal claimed that the basic idea of adjusting national budgets to slow or speed an economy was first developed in Sweden by himself.
To give some illusion of not being bias they threw in Hayek…
Though you have a point that prizes should be awarded for original thought and not just making others peoples ideas more understandable and readable. I am not familiar enough with de Soto’s work to make any judgement about it’s originality I am afraid.
I like a lot of the things I’ve learned about Lucas, with his Islands model being especially interesting. To what extent is his approach still quite aggregated however, like that of Friedman and Keynes, investigating prices like one whole rising or falling, as opposed to what actually happens with a plethora of different changes and capital allocations in an interlocked chain of causation? Indeed, I feel like making my next paper an Austrian critique and rehabillitation of his model. Looking at DSGE would also be intriguing once I know enough mainstream econ.
I mean no disrespect to Dr Huerta de Soto in any of the following, but I can think of quite a few economists, amongst them Austrians, who are more deserving of the prize than he is, a few that I can think of would Kirzner, Selgin, Tullock, Demsetz and Alchian.
Why won’t he win? Well I can think of a few reasons.
All of these economists have been far more influential than Huerta de Soto. Granted, Huerta de Soto’s book has been highly influential within a certain branch of Austrian economics. But, this circle is relatively small in terms of the profession and has had very little contact with scholars who do not work in the same research programme. Kirzner, for example, has interacted with the larger profession (and all of the above scholars would be considered part of the mainstream). This involves not solely publishing in Austrian journals but with more mainstream outlets. Like it or not, impact is one of the criteria the committee uses to evualate candidates, and very few mainstream economics will have even heard of Huerta de Soto.
I can’t really think of any long lasting, distinctive and original contribution that Huerta de Soto has made. His work makes ABC theory very accessible to the layman, but there really isn’t much there that would be considered original. Once again, this is an important criteria in the choice of the committee. To take two examples, Kirzner’s work on entrepreneurship has its roots in Mises and Hayek but is largely his own, Tullock’s work in rent seeking (as well as his other work on Public Choice) has been highly influential. If you look over the list of past winners you see that even if you disagree with the contributions they have made, those contributions have been largely their own and have inspired further research. Most modern micro comes from Hicks and Samuelson, Krugman did a great deal of work in international economics, the ABC theory owes most of its elaboration to Hayek, Buchanan pioneered Public Choice and so on.
Closely related to the last point, we’ve already had an award given to somebody for the ABC theory, unless Huerta de Soto has some other major contribution to ABC theory, I can’t see we need to honour the same contribution twice.
Huerta de Soto is way out of the mainstream in his most influential publication. Rothbardians don’t seem to comprehend how people don’t see the fraudulent and destructive nature of FRB, conversely, mainstream economists think that anybody who disputes the necessity of FRB is nuts (which I agree with, btw).
I’m not sure that Huerta de Soto is correct in what he writes.
I actually think all of these (number four needs some qualifications) are pretty good reasons for him not winning.
You haven’t read the thing. Although he has written the book in great clarity, his exposition of capital theory and ABCT in this book is no way recommended to the layman or the Austrian beginner.
Yes, it is obvious that the Nobel committee is usually inclined to go with statist pseudo-economists, but you seem to imply that this somehow undermines the real value of his work. For crying out loud, Mises and Hayek were and are still out of mainstream economics. So who cares about mainstream pseudo-economics?
Actually, de Soto departs from Rothbard (and Mises) in some very critical areas in his analysis of FRB.
So Rothbardians should abandoned their position because Keynesian economists don’t see it that way either?
And they also think that anybody who disputes the modern interventionist policies and monetary central planning is nuts. Your point is?
But why are we treating this prize as if it actually signified some meaningful achievement. Yes, every now and then, some worthy person gets the award. You could have a better record if they just picked names out of a hat. The award is nothing but a sham, no more then the Nobel peace prize.
He mentioned Krtzner just so his list sounds more credible.
The only thing that doesn’t make the prize meaningful is how the economists are chosen. We are implicitly assuming in this thread that Austrians would have a chance, meaning some type of change in the thought process of those in charge of voting. Obviously, I don’t think anybody really thinks that de Soto has a chance.
It’s a shame that no one here has mentioned either Leland Yeager or Axel Leijonhufvud., two slightly more plausible fellow travelers. Another economist that deserves mention is Mark Blaug. Every article he writes is full of novel analysis.
I didn’t understand Rothbard’s case against FRB first either. I think it is just the definitions that are vague though. “Why can’t we pool our reserve funds in a bank? It is like a car-pool, they aren’t fraudulent.” This was problematic until I realized it has nothing what so ever to do with FRB. Once you make it clear that FRB can exist only for demand deposits and that a demand deposit is an unrestricted promise to deliver money on demand it becomes much more obvious where the problem is…
Mark Blaug? He is against Mises’ work in all his histories. Why mention Mark Blaug, of all people? [See p. 81 of “Blaug’s The Methodology of Economics”].
Nobel Prizes have been more about politics than anything else. Einstein got his Nobel Prize in 1921 for his work on the photoelectric effect. Rewarding him for his work on relativity would have meant rewarding Langevin too and Langevin was too much of a political “hot potato” to handle (he was a staunch Communist).
My bet is we’ll probably see a slow shift towards laissez-faire and free market recipients as interventionist politics around the world fail to address problems and government will be forced to turn to the hated “free marketers” for a way out. This won’t be quick and won’t be easy but is bound to happen.
To most of those who posted after me, the Nobel prize has always been awarded to people based on a number of criteria that Jesus Huerta de Soto does not fit, no matter how intelligent he may or may not be. It’s one thing to argue that he is a good, or even great economist, but this doesn’t necessitate winning the prize. There are plenty of economists, including those named by ziragt and myself, who fit the criteria for the Nobel prize to a greater extent than does Huerta de Soto, all of whom do great work. If you disagree with the selection criteria of the committee, that’s one thing and from some point of views that may be understandable, but the award isn’t simply given to economists who are good or who you like but meet certain other requirements.
Now, if you want to debate whether or not the requirements are fair, efficient or whatever then we can start another topic and debate that, I think they are pretty fair and reasonable. But the question posed in the OP concerned whether or not Jesus Huerta de Soto deserved the Nobel prize, and I don’t think he deserves it much more than he deserves an Olypmic gold medal for the 100 meters.
Concerning FRB, I don’t want to get into this. Yes, I view the full reserve position as a bit nutty (and Lilburne, I don’t believe that implies he is a nut or is in the least bit disrespectful). But the point I was trying to make is that full reserve banking isn’t something that is often challenged by mainstream economists and anybody who pushes for that policy proposal as hard as Huerta de Soto does probably doesn’t deserve the Nobel prize.
EDIT: Regarding Selgin, perhaps you agree with Huerta de Soto more but the fact remains that Selgin has done work within the mainstream developing free banking theory. It’s probably too soon (same applies for Huerta de Soto, by the way) but he has worked on developing and elaborating upon a new research programme.
I mentioned him because I enjoy his work and find it challenging. It would also be nice if those who do work in history of thought or methodology got a little respect, for once. Notice, I did not say he was a fellow traveler. (By the way, his recent articles in History of Political Economy have been brilliant; check out his piece on the three theorems of welfare economics)
As for Huerta de Soto, I have not read his “Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles” in its entirety, but judging from his “Theory of Dynamic Efficiency,” he does not seem to have done a great deal of original, pioneering work. His work is of a high academic standard, but it mainly retreads the same ground that Austrians have been writing on for years.
If I were to nominate an Austrian, I would probably pick someone working on the theory of organizations and firms, since it is there that real progress has been made by Austrians. For example, Nicolai Foss or Peter Lewin, two under appreciated Austrians.
I don’t really see this fitting the facts, I mean in 2008 Krugman wins the award and the next year Ostrom wins the award, in terms of political views there’s a considerable distance between them, especially in comparison to the rest of the profession. List of winners includes people like Buchanan, Coase, Hayek, Becker, Stigler and Friedman all of whom are free markets guys. Perhaps more people who would be considered liberals win, but then, most economists are liberals.