The economics establishment has attempted to evade responsibility for the Global Financial Collapse by calling it an unpredictable, “Black Swan” event. But in fact some non-neoclassical economists foresaw the crisis and warned the public of its approach. The Revere Award aims to give these economists the professional and public recognition that they deserve, to encourage others to utilize their methods, and to increase the likelihood that, for the benefit of humankind, empirically responsible economists will be listened to in the future
You may nominate up to three candidates by leaving a comment below. They must be economists, and we are looking for the three who first and most cogently warned of the coming calamity. Subsequently a page with supporting comments with be put up for each economist nominated.
As with the Dynamite Prize, nominations and the submission of evidence will remain open for several weeks, after which time a short list will be announced and voting by PollDaddy will commence. Each voter will have three votes, and the Revere Award will be given to the three economists receiving the most votes.
24 February 2010
With a couple of exceptions, all submitted comments for nominations for the Revere Prize have been approved for posting below. However when it comes time to select the short-list for the ballot, the criteria initially stated above will be honoured. Please note below the two key words in bold:
They must be economists, and we are looking for the three who first and most cogently warned of the coming calamity.
These restrictions are in no way intended to deny that there were non-economists who saw the Global Financial Collapse coming and gave public warning. Similarly, insistence upon observing the definite article is not to deny that there have been economists whose theoretical work was or could have been used to anticipate the calamity that came to pass.
These criteria have been set partly to make it a coherent exercise, but more importantly because this prize has been established to give recognition to those economists who have demonstrated superior capability at applying economics in real-time to the real-world.
The recent events, with the parts played and not played by economists, have demonstrated that within the economics profession today the general level of competence at real-world economics is grievously less than what society requires. But one also needs to recognize that it is humanly natural that in the wake of their failure the profession’s dominant power echelons should feel resentment and jealousy toward those economists who foresaw the events and to be disinclined to assign blame and credit where they are due. Hence the establishment of the Dynamite and Revere Prizes
