Hicks-Tinbergen Award
2024 Hicks-Tinbergen Award Recipients:
Paper: The Private and External Costs of Germany's Nuclear Phase-Out (JEEA Volume 20 Issue 3)
Authors: Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, Akshaya Jha
Motiviation: This path-breaking paper addresses a central question: what is the proper role of nuclear fission in the context of the transition to low-carbon sources of energy? The authors use the unique setting of the phase-out of German nuclear generation in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima accident to assess the costs and benefits of nuclear fission. The paper convincingly shows that this phase-out was very likely a major policy blunder. On a substantive level, the paper carefully and credibly documents the unintended consequences of the phase-out in terms of increased electricity generation from coal-based plants, as well as imports of electricity. To offset the resulting excess mortality from local air pollution, one would need to greatly overestimate the risk and costs of a nuclear disaster, or to be implausibly risk averse. Arguments based on behavioral distortions, such as loss aversion, probability weighting, and framing effects resulting from the salience of nuclear accidents, can explain why German voters still tend to favor the phase-out of nuclear energy despite its apparent net costs. On a methodological level, the paper breaks new ground by using machine learning techniques to estimate the sources of electricity generation that substituted for shuttered nuclear plants. A deep knowledge of the science behind local pollution, a solid understanding of the processes of electricity generation, and a keen grasp of the environmental trade-offs involved in shutting down nuclear plants, all underlie the compelling economic analysis displayed in this remarkable contribution.
Award Committee: Romain Wacziarg (Chair), Maristella Botticini and Imran Rasul
Past Award Winners
2022
Buying First or Selling First in Housing Markets (JEEA Volume 19 Issue 1)
Espen R Moen, Plamen T Nenov, Florian Sniekers
Award Committee: Imran Rasul (Chair), Jan Eeckhout and Silvana Tenreyro
2020
Competition and the Welfare Gains from Transportation Infrastructure: Evidence from the Golden Quadrilateral of India (JEEA Volume 17 Issue 6)
Jose Asturias, Manuel García-Santana and Roberto Ramos
Award Committee: Imran Rasul (Chair), Oriana Bandiera and Kjetil Storesletten
2018
Long-term Persistence (JEEA 14:6) - Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales
Award Committee: Juuso Valimaki (Chair), Philippe Aghion and Per Krusell
2016
The Balanced US Press (JEEA 13:2) - Riccardo Puglisi and James Snyder
Award Committee: Juuso Valimaki (Chair), Rachel Griffith and Eliana La Ferrara
2014
What Good Is Wealth Without Health? The Effect of Health on the Marginal Utility of Consumption (JEEA Volume 11 Issue s1) - Amy Finkelstein, Erzo F.P. Luttmer, and Matthew Notowidigdo
Award Committee: Fabrizio Zilibotti (Chair), Manuel Arellano and Maristella Botticini
2012
Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe (JEEA Volume 8 Issue 4) - Guido Tabellini
Award Committee: Fabrizio Zilibotti (Chair), Orazio Attanasio and Christopher Pissarides
2010
Youth Unemployment and Crime in France (JEEA Volume 7 Issue 5) - Denis Fougère, Francis Kramarz and Julien Pouget
Award Committee: Fabrizio Zilibotti (Chair), Ernst Fehr and Jordi Galí
2008
Ego Utility, Overconfidence, and Task Choice (JEEA Volume 4 Issue 4) - Botond Köszegi
Award Committee: Xavier Vives (Chair), Andreu Mas-Colell and Timothy Besley
2006
Capital, Labor and the Firm: A Study of German Codetermination - Gary Gorton and Frank A. Schmid
Award Committee: Mathias Dewatripont (Chair), Guido Tabellini and Xavier Vives
2004
An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area (JEEA 1:5) - Frank Smets and Raf Wouters
Award Committee: Torsten Persson (Chair), Thomas Mariotti and Thomas Piketty
2002
Electoral competition and politician turnover (EER, 45 (1), 1/2001, 1-26) - Juan Carrillo and Thomas Mariotti
Award Committee: Philippe Aghion (Chair), Giuseppe Bertola and Ernst Fehr
2000
Gift exchange and reciprocity in competitive experimental markets (EER 42/1 (1998), 1-34)- Ernst Fehr, Georg Kirchsteiger and Arno Riedl
Award Committee: Peter Neary (Chair), Charles Bean and Timo Terasvirta
1998
Wages, profits and the international portfolio puzzle (EER, 40 (1997), 219-254) - Laura Bottazzi, Paolo Pesenti and Eric van Wincoop
Award Committee: Eric van Damme (Chair), Roland Benabou and Costas Meghir
1996
Job Matching and Job Competition: Are lower educated workers at the back of job queues? (EER, 39 (1995),1717- 1731) - Jan van Ours and Geert Rider
Award Committee: Richard Blundell (Chair), Willem Buiter and Jean Tirole
1994
Customer coalitions, Monopoly price discrimination and generic entry deterrence (EER, 37 (1993), 1569-1597) - Robert Innesq and Richard J. Sexton
Award Committee: Angus Deaton (Chair), Jean-Jacques Laffont and Lars Svensson
1992
Price formation for fish: An application of an inverse demand function (EER, 33 (1989), 1509-1525) - A.P. Barten and L.J. Bettendorf
Award Committee: Marc Nerlove (Chair), Francesco Giavazzi and John Sutton