Nobel Peace Prize and Economic Prize Winner 2006

My undergraduate years were filled with mostly Keynesian and some Neo-Classic economics of thought. Since I'm interested in economic development, I studied growth and development intensely. Therefore, I'm more or less familiar with the Nobel Economics Prize winner; at least I learnt their concepts. It is always interesting to see how they can develop such concepts that are simple but powerful. They are powerful enough to shape the development of economic thinking and economic policies.

Therefore, the easiest way to know about economics is to read the life and the works of the Nobel Economics Price winner. You'll see how their passion can turn into the leading concept in economics field. I'm not saying that I'm familiar with the entire winners, but I somewhat superficially know some of the winner's works.

Edmund Phelps is the winner for 2006 Nobel Economics Prize. I know his work, but mostly from the Paul Ormerod's book (The Butterfly Economics). The book criticize the NAIRU (Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment). I'm more familiar with Phillips's Curve, but I read about this NAIRU concept hastily. One of the main reason for my negligence is in high growth developing countries like Indonesia, we don't really care about unemployment, because high growth will undermined the unemployment rate. In addition, in Indonesia, unemployment was still a vague concept, because our social structure, which require redefinition of employment and unemployment concept. But nowadays, this concept is very important for development in Indonesia. Edmund Phelps is, without a doubt, one of the leading thinkers in economic.

Now, let's move to the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2006. Surprisingly, at least for me, the winner is also economist, and I know his work from my undergraduate class. Dr. Mohammad Yunus is the inventor of Grameen Bank; it is a microcredit/microfinancing for people who can not get credit from the conventional bank. His work was copied by many countries, even his concept is included in many economics' development books, like Leading Issues in Economic Development by Gerald Meier. I studied his work in the development class. At the time I learnt about his concept, microfinancing is one of the leading policy in Indonesia, and in many developing countries for helping the poor. Furthermore, when I became a field researcher, I surveyed the impact of microfinancing to the people. It is a very well known concept and practice for me. Of course you will not see the Grameen Bank in American Economic review, Journal of Political Economy, or even in any "serious" economic discussion, but microcredit was spreading to help the poor in the world. It was not about the concept that might be exist before Grameen Bank (which I doubt it), but the practice that makes people believe in microcredit.

I'm very happy to see Dr. Mohammad Yunus as the Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work in economic for the poor. Well, I think he should also win the Nobel Economic Prize As a bigheaded economist I would say, this is one of the example if we work economics problem, peace can be achieved simultaneously. I hope more "economist for the poor" will be rocognized in the years ahead.

p.