Closing the season, the Nobel economics prize is handed out on Monday with specialists on credit, the role of government, and wealth inequality seen as possible contenders.

The winner of the prestigious prize, which last year went to American economist Claudia Goldin, will be announced at 11:45 a.m. (0945 GMT).

Goldin was recognized “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes” and was ironically one of very few women ever handed the prize.

Of the 93 laureates honored since 1969, only three have been women — Goldin in 2023, her compatriot Elinor Ostrom in 2009 and French-American Esther Duflo in 2019.

“The general trend in society to attach greater importance to parity and diversity has broadened the research process,” Mikael Carlsson, professor of economics at Uppsala University in Sweden, told AFP.

“However, this is not the criteria taken into account when assessing whether a scientific contribution is worthy of a Nobel Prize,” he insisted.

His bet is that Japan’s Nobuhiro Kiyotaki and Britain’s John H. Moore will win for their work on how small shocks can affect economic cycles, or American Susan Athey for her work on market design.

But what criteria should be used to predict a Nobel winner?

For Magnus Henrekson of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm, the most obvious place to start is to look at the research interests of the committee that decides which candidates are worthy.