Economics Nobel for Raghuram Rajan? Ex-RBI boss on research firm’s list of probable winners

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October 7, 2017

"India's turbo-charged economy sputtered in the quarter ended in June as it grew at a three-year low of 5.7 per cent, due to the aftershocks of last November's demonetization and uncertainties over the rollout of a nation-wide Goods and Services Tax.

October 7, 2017

"India's turbo-charged economy sputtered in the quarter ended in June as it grew at a three-year low of 5.7 per cent, due to the aftershocks of last November's demonetization and uncertainties over the rollout of a nation-wide Goods and Services Tax.

Despite this, the stock market scaled new heights and boosted the fortunes of the nation's 100 richest," said Forbes magazine.

Slow governance was responsible for decline in growth: RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan could end up receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics, if predictions made by Clarivate Analytics are to be believed.

Clarivate Analytics uses research citation data to draw up predictions of Nobel Prize winners across fields.

In its list of possible Nobel Prize in Economics winners, Clarivate Analytics has named a total of six contenders – Colin F Camerer, George F. Loewenstein, Robert E. Hall, Michael C. Jensen, Stewart C. Myers, and, of course, Raghuram G. Rajan.

Clarivate has clubbed Rajan's work with that of Myers and Jensen and says that they could be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics "for their contributions illuminating the dimensions of decisions in corporate finance".

As a 'Citation Laureate', Rajan's work "is clearly 'of Nobel Class' according to its significance and utility", Clarivate says on its page explaining what goes behind predicting Nobel winners.

Now, predictions are just that – we may not know for sure whether Rajan is actually in the running for the Nobel Prize in Economics.

In fact, if he isn't announced the winner of the Economics Nobel, we may not know for at least half a century whether he was even on the shortlist (the Nobel committee does not release names of nominees until 50 years after the prize is announced).

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, as the award is officially called, will be announced Monday. But, Clarivate's prediction applies to the future as well – if Rajan isn't announced the winner this year, for example, there is still a chance that he may win the award sometime in the future.

Going by Clarivate's history, though, the company seems to have had some success with predicting Nobel winners, especially in the field of economics. The company has been predicting Nobel Prize winners since 2002 and has correctly forecast the Economics award eight times.

Clarivate has also been on a hot streak of predicting the Economics Nobel winners. The firm has correctly predicting the prize's winners for the last four years in a row.

It must, however, be also noted that Raghuram Rajan's figures on the list with five other economists, giving him a one in six chance of winning the Economics Nobel even if assumed that Clarivate would be successful with its predictions this year as well.

This year, Clarivate has successfully predicted the Nobel Prize in Physics. The prize was awarded to Rainer Weiss, Kip S. Thorne and Barry Barish – Clarivate had previously named Weiss and Thorne 'Citation Laureates', the same classification that the firm has given Rajan.

FORMER RBI CHIEF RAJAN

The flamboyant Rahghuram Rajan served as India's chief banker for three years. Rajan served as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India under both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

Rajan left his post in September 2016, weeks before PM Modi announced his controversial decision to demonetize currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000. I

n recent weeks, Rajan, who went back to his teaching job at the University of Chicago, has said that the RBI was not asked to make a decision on demonetization when he was in office. Rajan recounted that he was asked for his opinion on the topic, which he gave orally.

"I was asked by the government in February 2016 for my views on demonetization, which I gave orally. Although there might be long-term benefits, I felt the likely short-term economic costs would outweigh them, and felt there were potentially better alternatives to achieve the main goal," Rajan wrote in his recently published book.

RAJAN THE ECONOMIST

Raghuram Rajan is considered to be a world renowned economist. He is said to have foreseen the 2008 market crash caused by subprime mortgage crisis in the US that would trigger the global financial recession.

He has won the British magazine Central Banking's Central Banker of the Year award for his handling of the rupee crisis in 2013 and bringing back foreign investors to the country.

Rajan has also served as the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and as a visiting professor at the visiting professor at Stockholm School of Economics, the Kellogg School of Management and the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Born in 1963 in Bhopal, Rajan graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.


Courtesy/Source: India Today/IANS