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He Nobel Prize in Economics was attributed this Monday to the Americans Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, two experts in “perfect” auctions whose groundbreaking work was used in particular for the allocation of telecommunication frequencies.
The award was given to them for “improving auction theory and inventing new auction formats,” for the “benefit of sellers, buyers and taxpayers around the world,” said the jury from the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Milgrom and Wilson, who were among the favorites for this year’s award, created a concept that is used for the sale of telecommunications frequency licenses in the United States. The jury noted that they worked both in theory and in practice.
The work of the two economists, both Stanford professors, has also been applied to airport slot allocation mechanisms.
“Auctions are extremely important … these new formats are at the service of society around the world,” said jury member Peter Fredriksson at the press conference that followed the announcement.
Robert Wilson, 83, demonstrated, among other things, that rational participants in an auction they tend to bid less than optimal for fear of overpaying.
Asked at the press conference shortly after the award was announced, Wilson was delighted with the news and said that he had never participated in an auction himself.
“I never participated in an auction … My wife pointed out to me that we bought ski boots on eBay, I guess it was an auction,” he said.
Paul Milgrom, 72, formulated a more general theory about auctions, showing that auctions “Generates higher prices when buyers obtain information on estimated values of both during the auction ”.
For the last Nobel Prize of the year, officially called the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics in memory of Alfred Nobel” there were several candidates, experts on issues such as inequalities, economic psychology, health or the labor market.
In 2019, the award was awarded to a trio of researchers specializing in the fight against poverty, Americans Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer and Franco-American Esther Duflo, the second distinguished woman in the discipline and the youngest winner in history. Of the prize.
Female year
Until now, economics has been the Nobel Prize where the profile of the future laureate is easier to guess: a man over 55 years old, of American nationality, like this year.
In the last 20 years, three-quarters of the winners fit this description. The average age of the laureates is also over 65, the highest of the six awards.
Although it is the most prestigious award for a researcher in economics, the award has not acquired the same status as the disciplines chosen by Alfred Nobel in his founding will (medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and literature).
His critics call him “False Nobel” and they claim that it overrepresents orthodox and liberal economists.
This award was instituted in 1968 by the Central Bank of Sweden and awarded for the first time in 1969.
The Nobel Prize in Economics closes a year marked on Friday by the peace prize awarded to the World Food Program, the UN agency that fights hunger.
On Thursday, the American poet Lucky louise received the prize for literature.
Besides the American Andrea Ghez, co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday, two women went down in Nobel history for their discovery of “genetic scissors”: the French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the american Jennifer Doudna, which became the first female duo to win a scientific Nobel, the one in chemistry.
With four female winners, the 2020 season was more female than usual, although it does not equal the record of five in 2009.
The laureates, who distribute almost one million euros (1.18 million dollars) for each discipline, will receive their award this year in their country of residence due to the coronavirus.
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