Tyler Cowen:
I’ve never once nailed the timing, but I have two predictions.
The first is William Baumol, who is I believe ninety-four years old. His cost-disease hypothesis is very important for understanding the productivity slowdown, see this recent empirical update. Oddly, the hypothesis is most likely false for the sector where Baumol pushed it hardest — music and the arts.
Baumol has many other contributions, but the next most significant is probably his theory of contestable markets, plus his writings on entrepreneurship.
The other option is a joint prize for environmental economics, perhaps to William Nordhaus, Partha Dasgupta, and Martin Weitzman. A prize in that direction is long overdue.
We'll also count Baumol as a win.
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