Chillin'Competition

Congratulations to Jean Tirole on the Nobel Prize! I cannot imagine anybody being unhappy or disappointed about this year’s pick. Even though he is just 61, I am ready to say the prize comes a little late. I confess I have been waiting for this moment since at least 2009, when it went to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson. The upside of waiting a few more years is that the award comes solo this time, comme il le fallait.

He is one of these economists who does not need an introduction. He is the author of The Book on Industrial Organisation (le Tirole) and has made fundamental contributions in the field. For instance, his 2003 landmark paper (with Jean-Charles Rochet) on two-sided markets has proved to be enormously influential, as Groupement des Cartes Bancaires and MasterCard show. Competition in Telecommunications, written jointly with the late Jean-Jacques Laffont, is one of my favourite books, and is a good introduction to his work on regulation. I guess I could keep going for a while (for instance, I remember discussing his work on open source software with a colleague the other day).