Regardless of who wins the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences on Monday, odds are the announcement will extend U.S. domination of that category. Of the 55 individuals who have won the prize since 1969, 43 were born in the United States or spent much of their scholarly careers at U.S. universities.
This tells us something about how scholarship in economics is distributed around the world. It would be dangerous, however, for our nation to rest on its laurels — even those awarded in Stockholm.
It is not unusual for one nation to dominate a category of awards over some period. German chemistry and physics led the world when the Nobel Prizes were first instituted. Germans received a disproportionate number of prizes in the initial two decades of the awards. U.S. physicists did not put in an appearance until just before World War II.
The pattern of economics prizes is interesting. Fifteen people received awards in the first decade after its institution in 1969. Only four were born in the United States. Another four were born in Europe but taught at U.S. universities when they won the prize. Seven were Europeans who spent their entire careers in Europe.
In the last 10 years, 10 of the 18 economics laureates have been U.S. natives. Another seven were born elsewhere but worked here. Only one was born abroad and spent no part of his career in our country.
There is an economics brain drain from the rest of the world to the U.S., which reflects the predominance of universities like Chicago, Stanford and Harvard. That, in turn, reflects the scholarly dynamism of U.S. higher education and the nation’s private and public funding for research. Most of the best scholars in economics eventually migrate to the United States.
The European Union is engaged in navel gazing right now. In its 2000 Lisbon Declaration, it said it would be “the world’s most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy” by 2010. A year earlier, the Bologna Declaration committed the Union “to create a European space for higher education in order to enhance the employability and mobility of citizens and to increase the international competitiveness of European higher education.”
Little is happening to change the underfunding and sterile government control of European universities. Nor do European foundations fund research to the extent of their U.S. counterparts.
We should not be complacent. As in basic sciences and engineering, the proportion of native-born Americans in graduate programs is shrinking. Asians, who are not afraid of mathematics, are filling more places.
There is no indication any Asian university will come within striking distance of the best U.S. institutions for a long time. But just as the tides in physics, chemistry and medicine slowly shifted from England and Germany to the United States in the past century, so could they shift across the Pacific to Asia in economics, engineering and the sciences in this century.
© 2005 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.