Congratulations to the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2024 Prediction Contest

The HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences summarised the results of its traditional prediction contest. FES holds this contest annually on the eve of Nobel Week. This year, the contest once again attracted participants from different regions of Russia and countries around the world. Remarkably, one participant managed to predict all three laureates of the 2024 Economics Prize — Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson.

The chocolate medal traditionally served at the Nobel Banquet.

© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Alexander Mahmoud

The winner of the annual prediction contest is Gabriel Gonzalez, a final-year student in the Department of Mathematics and Econometrics at the London School of Economics (LSE). He was the only one to correctly name all three candidates at once. Gabriel said betting on AJR was intuitive because they're a group of people whom you'd already expect to have won the Nobel. According to him, ‘I think that AJR were bound to win the Nobel precisely because of the applicability and wide dissemination of their research.’

Gabriel Gonzalez

Department of Mathematics and Econometrics at the London School of Economics (LSE)

People in academia underestimate the importance of having policy-relevant research as a necessary condition to win the Nobel - a big predictor of winning the Nobel is having published non-technical work in the form of a book or op-eds in major newspapers.

Works by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson have had a wide-reaching impact. One of the most famous books by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, ‘Why Nations Fail?’, was first published in 2012 but is still relevant. Its contribution to the development of economic science and increasing the popularity of economics was also noted by other winners of the competition.

Gabriel Gonzalez

Department of Mathematics and Econometrics at the London School of Economics (LSE)

As an increasingly mathematical field, academics in economics often sacrifice tractability and policy relevance in favour of mathematical rigor and sophistication. We often forget that the work which is bound to have the greatest impact is often a convincing theoretical explanation backed by rigorous econometric tests that even a non-economist could understand. Francis Bacon first coined the phrase "Knowledge is power", yet in these circumstances it is the application of knowledge to policy-relevant matters that constitutes power and influence.

As a prize, Gabriel will receive the book ‘Russian and Western Economic Thought’, published by Springer, signed by its editor, Vladimir Avtonomov, Professor Emeritus of the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences. The book is devoted to the mutual influences of Russian and Western economic thought.

Five more people were able to guess two of the three Nobelists, namely  Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. They are Anastasia Gergenreter, Matvey Zhukovsky, Sergey Salomatnikov, Farid Khusainov (HSE) and Nikolai Kovalenko (Yandex Praktikum). All of them showed excellent results. We invite everyone to participate next year!

Anastasia Gergenreter

Assistant, Department of Applied Economics

‘I had heard about the competition, which is held annually at the Faculty, before, but I decided to take part personally and try my luck only this year. The list of candidates for the Economics Prize remains practically unchanged from year to year, and many colleagues have been predicting the award for the current laureates for quite some time,’ Anastasia Gergenreter commented on her participation in the competition.

Sergey Salomatnikov had also been hoping for this result for a long time. ‘I've been eagerly awaiting this moment for quite some time now. I'm so happy to see these authors finally being recognised for their incredible work! Their magnum opus [Why Nations Fail? — editorial note] was published back in 2012 and has had a profound impact on the entire field of economic science ever since. I'm sorry I didn't guess the third Nobelist! I thought it would be better to guess one than to bet on three. But that's life! Sometimes predictions don't come true, but I'm really happy that I managed to guess two laureates. I'm happy that these economists have finally received the prize they deserve’.

Nikolai Kovalenko also mentioned that the Nobel Committee's choice was one of the most anticipated: ‘I had a feeling that the most likely candidate for this year's economics laureate would be Daron Acemoglu, as he is a role model for academic economists. Daron is a very productive author and could win the prize in collaboration with various co-authors on a number of topics.’

Daron Acemoglu was the most popular candidate by far. In total, he was mentioned as many as 44 times, which is pretty impressive! The scientist has also been a firm favourite for the past few years: in 2021, he was mentioned by half of the contestants, and in 2022, he received 63 votes.

For the time in the contest history, several dozen people were able to correctly name one of the Nobel winners. The past record was set in 2021 when the name of at least one award winner was given by 19 participants. In addition to Acemoglu, Janet Curry, Partha Dasgupta, and Olivier Blanchard were among the top picks.

The FES team extends a big thank you to all the students and teachers from HSE University, Moscow State University, St Petersburg State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, National State University, UrFU, NES, Harvard Business School, London School of Economics, Università Bocconi, University of San Carlos of Guatemala, Patliputra Universitywho took part in the contest.

The prediction contest was established at HSE University in 2021 in honour of the memory of Prof. Andrei Bremzen, a talented economist and populariser of science. Back in 2004, he started such a quiz within the walls of NES, and now FES continues this tradition.