French economist Jean Tirole yesterday won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, or the Nobel Prize in Economics, for research on market power and regulation.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Tirole for clarifying “how to understand and regulate industries with a few powerful firms.”
Tirole, 61, works at the Toulouse School of Economics in France and has a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Photo: EPA
“From the mid-1980s and onward, Jean Tirole has breathed new life into research on such market failures,” the academy said, adding that Tirole’s work has strong bearing on how governments deal with mergers or cartels and how they should regulate monopolies.
“In a series of articles and books, Jean Tirole has presented a general framework for designing such policies and applied it to a number of industries, ranging from telecommunications to banking,” the academy said.
It was the first economics prize without a US winner since 1999.
“I am so moved,” Tirole said, speaking to a news conference in Stockholm by telephone from Toulouse.
Before Tirole’s theories, policymakers advocated simple rules including capping prices for companies with a monopoly and banning cooperation between competitors, the academy said. Tirole showed that in some circumstances, such rules can do more harm than good, it added.
Drawing on insights based on Tirole’s work, “governments can better encourage powerful firms to become more productive and, at the same time, prevent them from harming competitors and customers,” the academy said.
The economics prize completed this year’s Nobel Prize announcements. The awards are to be presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.
The economics award was added to the rankings in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
REGIONAL STABILITY: Taipei thanked the Biden administration for authorizing its 16th sale of military goods and services to uphold Taiwan’s defense and safety The US Department of State has approved the sale of US$228 million of military goods and services to Taiwan, the US Department of Defense said on Monday. The state department “made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale” to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US for “return, repair and reshipment of spare parts and related equipment,” the defense department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release. Taiwan had requested the purchase of items and services which include the “return, repair and reshipment of classified and unclassified spare parts for aircraft and related equipment; US Government
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from