Estimating the economics Nobel Prize laureates' achievement from their fame

Abstract

This article estimates the achievement of Nobel Prize winners in Economics according to a simple model that exponentially relates fame to achievement. Based on Google hits, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and Milton Friedman turn out to be the top-three economists that achieved the most. It is clear that fame in economics is not merely based on pure academic achievement.

Keywords:

• fame
• Nobel Prize
• economists
• achievement

JEL Classification:

• A10
• B31

Notes

¹ With a bit of a nod, Schulman and Boissier (2001) consider Google the best choice of a search engine, since it respects their intuition about the ranking of the fame of a set of well-known individuals. Undoubtedly being Beatles fans, Schulman and Boissier (2001) even invoke the Lennon Theorem (1966) which states that the Beatles are more popular than Jesus Christ. Google even respected this ‘theorem’! Unfortunately for these die hard Beatles fans, the Lennon Theorem was also violated by Google in later years (Schulman 2006).

² See http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2008/krugman.html.