Three Americans won the Nobel Economics Prize yesterday for advances in ways to analyze markets that can be applied to both developing and advanced economies.
George A. Akerlof, 61, of the University of California at Berkeley, A. Michael Spence, 58, of Stanford University and Joseph E. Stiglitz 58, of Columbia University will share the 10 million kronor (US$943,000) award.
They were cited "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information," which takes into account the fact that some market players have better information than others.
The laureates laid the foundation in the 1970s for a general theory about how that affected how information is exchanged and their contributions "form the core of modern information economics," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
"Countless applications extend from traditional agricultural markets in developing countries to modern financial markets in developed economies," the citation said.
Their research can be used to explain everything from excessively high interest rates on local lending markets in Third World countries to why people looking for a good used car often will turn to a dealer rather than a private seller.
Akerlof's 1970 essay titled "The Market For Lemons," which refers to defective old cars, was described by the academy as the most important study in information economics because it shows that "hypothetically, the information problem can either cause an entire market to collapse or contract into an adverse selection of low-quality products."
Stiglitz quit his job as the World Bank's chief economist in 1999 to return to academic life after a controversial tenure in which he publicly criticized the austerity measures -- high interest rates and cuts in public spending -- that were favored as solutions to financial crises in Asia and Russia.
He was cited for contributions that "have transformed the way economists think about the working of markets."
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS