By Brock Cox
As of January 2020, there have been 51 Nobel prizes awarded to 84 individuals. There have been more American winners, with the University of Chicago being the most affiliated institution with 32 Laureates. Dating back to 1969 and Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen, only two women (Esther Duflo and Elinor Ostrom) have since won the award. Criteria for the prize include: No more than three people can share the prize in any given year; they must still be alive at the time of announcement; and their contribution must be outstanding in their field. The award could be considered to be the ultimate academic prize in Economics. Famous examples like John Nash, Paul Krugman and Franco Modigliani may be familiar to undergraduate economic students, but what about more generally? Should we be expecting students of the winners to also become future Nobel Prize winners?
Although not all winners have connections, there are a surprising few who have been a doctoral student of a Nobel winning supervisor and achieved the feat themselves. For example, two of the most recent winners- Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo- are married with Banerjee also originally being Duflo’s doctoral adviser. I believe this is the only time the same Nobel prize has been awarded in Economics to a couple and where the same award has gone to a student and their doctoral advisor. The 2018 winner William Nordhaus was advised by the 1987 winner Robert Solow, a student himself of Nobel winning Wassily Leontief. In fact, Solow has advised a total of 4 Nobel Prize winners: Nordhaus (2018), Akerlof (2001), Stiglitz (2001) and Diamond (2010). The 2013 joint winner Robert Shiller was a student of the 1985 winner Franco Modigliani. Mario Draghi, famous to many Greeks, was also a student of Modigliani’s but that’s another story. Another feat is Michael Spence’s 2001 win, possibly the only case of having two separate Nobel winning advisors in Schelling (2005) and Arrow (1972); one before receiving their award and one after. In Finance, we have an example of a three wave Nobel Prize event: Merton Miller won the prize in 1990; his student Eugene Fama won the award in 2013; and their student Myron Scholes in 1997. Wassily Leontief also has a very intriguing student tree. He was advisor to three Nobel Prize winners: Samuelson, Solow and Schelling. Between them, these three have also been advisors to seven more winners. Additionally there are two more Nobel Prize winners in this student tree- Prescott and Mortensen- both who were students of Michael C. Lovell who was also taught by Leontief. Leontief therefore has three 2nd wave Laureates and nine 3rd wave Laureates.
So, does it pay to pick a Nobel prize winner as your supervisor? I doubt it. Many of these students would have been studying at a time predating the award of the prize to their advisors. To many universities it is a dream to have a Nobel Prize winner to be associated with your institution. It is an even greater nod to prestige to have an active Laureate teaching at your institution. The fact a regular stream of prestigious universities is named on the list of winners- Harvard, Chicago, Ivy League, Oxbridge, LSE, MIT- is more of a clue to why these winners may be second or third wave Nobel Prize winners. Universities with better reputations, money and prestige will undoubtedly attract the majority of candidates with the greatest potential. Academics at the top of their field can nurture and mould this talent. But we cannot ignore the importance of the supervisor. If I was learning to run the 100 metres, I would rather have Usain Bolt than Dr Peter Dawson (Sorry Pete!) as my tutor. These top universities attract the best academics with greater wages, research grants and prestigious positions awarded by generous financial donors. This collective draw is what dictates this pool of prestigious talent that then further attracts the best and most talented with the greatest potential as doctoral candidates.
This doesn’t mean you can’t win a Nobel Prize if your advisor isn’t a Nobel Prize winner themselves. Perhaps any link has spurious undertones? After all, if your institution has Nobel winning teachers, it is going to be well established and prestigious. Moreover, given the difficulties in entry requirements, you will have already proved yourself to have great potential. However, it does appear to help if your advisor is a Nobel winner. But, aside from pressuring your supervisor to produce Nobel Prize winning studies to better your own chances, just remember that the award happens but once a year and many Nobel winners are 1st wavers. There’s hope for us all.
Photo by Nik MacMillan on Unsplash