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NOBEL PRIZES 2015

NOBEL

Who is the 2015 Nobel winner in economics?

UK-born Angus Deaton, praised for his analysis of "consumption, poverty, and welfare" has been awarded the last Nobel Prize to be announced in 2015. Here's what you need to know about his work.

Published: 12 October 2015 13:58 CEST
Updated: 12 October 2015 17:51 CEST
Who is the 2015 Nobel winner in economics?
The winner's research has focused on creating tools to measure poverty in the developing world. Deaton has also looked in detail at the impact of health and well-being on economic development.
 
“To design economic policy that promotes welfare and reduces poverty, we must first understand individual consumption choices. More than anyone else, Angus Deaton has enhanced this understanding,” said a press release from the the Nobel Committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday.
 
“By linking detailed individual choices and aggregate outcomes, his research has helped transform the fields of microeconomics, macroeconomics, and development economics.”
 
Deaton, 69, is a UK and US citizen. The son of a miner in Yorkshire in northern England, he studied at the prestigious Fettes College in Edinburgh before securing a place at the University of Cambridge.
 
He has been working at Princeton University in the US since 1983, having previously taught students at Bristol University.
 
Asked by media in Stockholm how he felt when he was first told he had won the prize, he joked: “I was pretty sleepy”.

The professor admitted that he knew it was a possibility that his work could be recognized by the committee but said he was still shocked and “delighted” to get told he would receive a Nobel award.

He described himself as “someone who is concerned with the poor of the world” and said he was very pleased that his particular field had been recognized in 2015.

“My current research focuses on the determinants of health in rich and poor countries, as well as on the measurement of poverty in India and around the world,” reads his profile on Princeton University's website.

“I also maintain a long-standing interest in the analysis of household surveys.”

The professor will receive a cash prize of eight million Swedish kronor ($978,541).
 
Other economists have rushed to congratulate Deaton, with one Harvard researcher even comparing him to Star Wars character Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Per Strömberg, a member of the Nobel committee and professor of finance and private equity at the Stockholm School of Economics, told The Local that he was pleased he and his colleagues had picked Angus Deaton as the 2015 Nobel laureate.
 
He said Deaton stood out as a giant in his field.
 
“He argues that to do good policy we need good measurement. It sounds trivial, but a lot of his research looks at individual households and he shows why that is important. (…) He argues that economic theory is not much use if you don't look at data, and it can't be crappy data, you really have to look at the nitty-gritty. To understand the big picture you need to look at the little picture.”
 
He agreed that while much remains to be done, Deaton's research takes the world another step towards eradicating poverty, which he admitted to economists is a crunch issue similar to curing cancer in the field of medicine.
 
“When you look at what the big economic changes are, the ones that affect a lot of people, it's not making sure that Swedes can buy more iPads, it's all these hundreds of thousands of people who can't get enough calories to survive. As economists we feel a lot more happy when we manage to do something about that.”
 
Strömberg added that he had met Deaton on a number of occasions, describing him as “funny, witty and sometimes provocative”.
 
“He speaks his opinion, he is very outspoken on foreign aid. He is not afraid of speaking his mind, but he doesn't just speak without being able to back it up with good data.”

 
Formally known as the Swedish Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2015, the economics prize is one of the more modern awards. It was not part of Nobel's original will and was only created in 1968, sponsored by Sweden's Central Bank (the Riksbank).
 
Last year the prize was awarded to French economist Jean Tirole for his analysis of the power and regulation of the free market.

NOBEL

US duo win Nobel for work on how heat and touch spark signals to the brain

US scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian on Monday won the Nobel Medicine Prize for discoveries on receptors for temperature and touch.

Published: 4 October 2021 13:42 CEST
US duo win Nobel for work on how heat and touch spark signals to the brain
Thomas Perlmann (right), the Secretary of the Nobel Committee, stands next to a screen showing David Julius (L) and Ardem Patapoutian, winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Medicine. Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP

“The groundbreaking discoveries… by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates have allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world,” the Nobel jury said.

The pair’s research is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of diseases and conditions, including chronic pain. Julius, who in 2019 won the $3-million Breakthrough Prize in life sciences, said he was stunned to receive the call from the Nobel committee early Monday.

“One never really expects that to happen …I thought it was a prank,” he told Swedish Radio.

The Nobel Foundation meanwhile posted a picture of Patapoutian next to his son Luca after hearing the happy news.

Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival, the Nobel Committee explained, and underpins our interaction with the world around us.

“In our daily lives we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses initiated so that temperature and pressure can be perceived? This question has been solved by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates.”

Prior to their discoveries, “our understanding of how the nervous system senses and interprets our environment still contained a fundamental unsolved question: how are temperature and mechanical stimuli converted into electrical impulses in the nervous system.”

Grocery store research

Julius, 65, was recognised for his research using capsaicin — a compound from chili peppers that induces a burning sensation — to identify which nerve sensors in the skin respond to heat.

He told Scientific American in 2019 that he got the idea to study chili peppers after a visit to the grocery store.  “I was looking at these shelves and shelves of basically chili peppers and extracts (hot sauce) and thinking, ‘This is such an important and such a fun problem to look at. I’ve really got to get serious about this’,” he said.

Patapoutian’s pioneering discovery was identifying the class of nerve sensors that respond to touch.

Julius, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco and the 12-year-younger Patapoutian, a professor at Scripps Research in California, will share the Nobel Prize cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.1 million, one million euros).

The pair were not among the frontrunners mentioned in the speculation ahead of the announcement.

Pioneers of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which paved the way for mRNA Covid vaccines, and immune system researchers had been widely tipped as favourites.

While the 2020 award was handed out in the midst of the pandemic, this is the first time the entire selection process has taken place under the shadow of Covid-19.

Last year, the award went to three virologists for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus.

Media, Belarus opposition for Peace Prize?

The Nobel season continues on Tuesday with the award for physics and Wednesday with chemistry, followed by the much-anticipated prizes for literature on Thursday and peace on Friday before the economics prize winds things up on Monday, October 11.

For the Peace Prize on Friday, media watchdogs such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have been mentioned as possible winners, as has the Belarusian opposition spearheaded by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Also mentioned are climate campaigners such as Sweden’s Greta Thunberg and her Fridays for Future movement.

Meanwhile, for the Literature Prize on Thursday, Stockholm’s literary circles have been buzzing with the names of dozens of usual suspects.

The Swedish Academy has only chosen laureates from Europe and North America since 2012 when China’s Mo Yan won, raising speculation that it could choose to rectify that imbalance this year. A total of 95 of 117 literature laureates have come from Europe and North America.

While the names of the Nobel laureates are kept secret until the last minute, the Nobel Foundation has already announced that the glittering prize ceremony and banquet held in Stockholm in December for the science and literature laureates will not happen this year due to the pandemic.

Like last year, laureates will receive their awards in their home countries. A decision has yet to be made about the lavish Peace Prize ceremony held in Oslo on the same day.

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