Peter L. Rousseau, Vanderbilt University professor of economics and professor of history, has been named co-recipient of the inaugural Robert E. Lucas Jr. Prize by the Journal of Political Economy.
The prize recognizes an article, “Extensive and Intensive Investment over the Business Cycle,” co-authored by Rousseau and New York University economist Boyan Jovanovic, which appeared in the journal’s August 204 issue. Rousseau and Jovanovic jointly received the prize Jan. 6. Official announcement of the prize—which recognizes “the most interesting paper in the area of Dynamic Economics published in the Journal of Political Economy, 2014–2016″—will appear as the lead item in the February 2017 issue of the journal.
The award, named in honor of Nobel laureate Robert E. Lucas Jr., is to be awarded biannually and carries a $3,000 honorarium. The bimonthly journal, now celebrating its 125th year, is published by the University of Chicago Press and is consistently ranked among the very top general interest journals in economics.
According to the prize committee, the paper by Rousseau and Jovanovic “empirically shows that extensive investment (i.e., creation of new firms) rises with aggregate Tobin’s Q, while intensive investment (i.e., investment of established firms) falls, and provides a helpful model for understanding this novel fact. A more rapid technological change makes it harder to adapt existing capital. This raises Q and thereby provides new entrants with a comparative advantage. The paper therefore makes a substantial contribution to understanding the dynamic economics of technological change and investment choices.”
Contact: Elizabeth Teselle, (615) 322-2460
Department of Economics