Nobel prize winners are supposed to have done something useful. Marie Curie discovered radioactivity – and thus gave us, among other things, X-rays. As for Albert Einstein, even before he became famous for his theory of relativity, he won a Nobel for describing photons, whose most familiar latter-day application is in optical fiber communications. Meanwhile... Read More

Yesterday I predicted that the winner of the 2013 Nobel economics prize would be an Anglophone quack – and in all probability as dangerous a quack as so many previous laureates. The news from Stockholm today is that the 2013 prize will be shared by three economists – Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Robert... Read More

Monday morning update: The Bank of Sweden has now announced the 2013 prize and I have posted a separate commentary here. EF Any day now the Bank of Sweden will announce a new Nobel economics laureate. Judging by the bank’s record, he is likely to be an aging Anglophone, Caucasian male. He is also likely... Read More