French economist Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize for economics for work that has shed light on how governments can “tame” the big businesses that dominate once-public monopolies like railways, highways and telecommunications, Reuters reports.
“This year’s prize in economic sciences is about taming powerful firms,” Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told a news conference after awarding the 8 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize.
The academy said Tirole has clarified policies about regulating industries with a few powerful firms, especially after a wave of privatizations had set governments a conundrum over how to encourage private investments in sectors like healthcare and railways while reining in profits.
“My one merit is to have been with the right people at the right time,” the 61-year-old, who is unknown to most French, told Reuters in his office at the Toulouse School of Economics in southwest France, where he is a professor.
