Curated playlist
Nobel laureates in Economics
- Robert Lucas Jr.Robert Lucas's divorce deal gave his ex-wife half of any Nobel Prize awarded before October 31, 1995.
- Joseph StiglitzJoseph Stiglitz explained why wages stay high in recessions even when workers are desperate for jobs.
- George AkerlofGeorge Akerlof showed why good used cars can vanish from a market.
- Friedrich HayekThree days before the 1929 Wall Street crash, Friedrich Hayek wrote that no sudden collapse was expected.
- Milton FriedmanMilton Friedman argued the Federal Reserve let the money supply shrink by one-third between 1929 and 1933.
- Esther DufloEsther Duflo was 46 when she became the youngest Nobel economics winner ever. She shared it in 2019.
- Paul KrugmanPaul Krugman turned to economics because psychohistory was fiction. Asimov's novels inspired him.
- Paul SamuelsonPaul Samuelson said he was born as an economist at age sixteen. It happened in a 1932 Chicago lecture on Malthus.
- James TobinJames Tobin proposed a tax on currency trading to throw sand in the wheels of speculation.
- Angus DeatonIn 2024, Nobel economist Angus Deaton said he had changed his mind on much of mainstream economics.
- John Forbes Nash Jr.John Forbes Nash Jr., an American mathematician, once mailed letters to embassies in Washington, D.C., announcing that he was founding a government. He signed them John Nash, Emperor of Antarctica, a title he believed he was in line to…
- Herbert A. SimonHerbert Simon argued that people don't pick the best option, they settle for good enough. He called it satisficing.
- Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman won the 2002 economics Nobel without ever taking an economics course.
- James M. BuchananEconomist James M. Buchanan argued that politicians act from self-interest like everyone else.
- John HicksEconomist John Hicks called his own famous diagram a classroom gadget. He made the IS-LM model in 1937.
- Oliver Hart (economist)Economist Oliver Hart was called as a government expert witness in two tax cases.
- Amartya SenAmartya Sen carries a name that was chosen for him by a Nobel laureate. Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, gave the newborn the name অমর্ত্য. The boy was born on the 3rd of November 1933 in Santiniketan, Bengal,…
- Franco ModiglianiEconomist Franco Modigliani won a student prize from Mussolini himself. Later he fled Italy and won a Nobel Prize.
- Gary BeckerEconomist Gary Becker argued that criminals are not irrational. He said they weigh the risks and rewards of a crime.
- Ronald CoaseRonald Coase faced twenty skeptical senior economists in 1960 and gradually won them over.
- James HeckmanAre people who join a program different from those who don't? James Heckman won a Nobel Prize for fixing that problem.
- Richard ThalerEconomist Richard Thaler played himself in the 2015 film The Big Short.
- Elinor OstromUCLA rejected Elinor Ostrom's economics application for lacking math. She later won a Nobel Prize in economics.
- Lawrence KleinLawrence Klein's model correctly predicted a postwar boom when many expected a depression.
- Claudia GoldinIn October 2023, the economist Claudia Goldin received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for having advanced our understanding of women's labor market outcomes". Only two women had won the award before her. None had ever won…
- Robert J. ShillerRobert J. Shiller called the stock market a bubble in his 2000 book Irrational Exuberance. He shared a Nobel in 2013.
- Joel MokyrEconomist Joel Mokyr won half of the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He argues ideas drive growth.