I’ve been travelling a lot this week and have read quite a lot of [amazon_link id=”0691159904″ target=”_blank” ]The Essential Hirschman[/amazon_link], a collection of Albert Hirschman’s essays – no doubt the success of Jeremy Adelman’s terrific biography, [amazon_link id=”0691155674″ target=”_blank” ]Worldly Philosopher,[/amazon_link] has stimulated interest in his work.

[amazon_image id=”0691159904″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Essential Hirschman[/amazon_image]

I’ll review it soon, but meanwhile was amused to find this observation in an essay on Arthur Lewis:

“Whereas in the natural or medical sciences Nobel prizes are often shared by two persons who have collaborated in or deserve joint credit for a given scientific advance, in economics the prize is often split between one person who has helped develop a certain thesis and another who has laboured mightily to prove it wrong.”

This week’s Nobel for Fama, Shiller and Hansen actually doesn’t fall into this category as the citation makes clear (and also this excellent Crooked Timber post http://crookedtimber.org/2013/10/15/sveriges-riksbank-prize-actually-blah-blah-blah/) – it is for the empirical of studying asset prices. Still, the efficient versus irrational markets notion has taken hold and would fit Hirschman’s observation.