French economist wins the Nobel Prize
Today, the 2014 Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to French economist Jean Tirole for “his analysis of market power and regulation.” When honoring Tirole, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the 61 year old Economics professor’s work on regulation and noted that his academic contributions should help guide governments when dealing with mergers and cartels or in the regulation of monopolies. Similarly, Christian Noyer, the head of France’s central bank noted the importance of Dr. Tirole’s work on regulation during the financial crisis during the 2008 financial crisis.
One criticism that was noted by Peter G. Klein on the Mises Economics blog, however, is that Dr. Tirole’s work “rests on the naive concepts of “monopoly” and “competition” that the Austrians have attacked since the 1940s.” On a broader level, the fact that Tirole was awarded the most important award in economics for advocating for increased international regulation, is polemic.
In a perfect world, the Nobel Prize would have gone to Israel M. Kirzner and William J. Baumol for their work on entrepreneurism, but we can rest easy knowing that, at the very least, it didn’t go to Thomas Piketty.
