William Sharpe, who won a Noble Prize for his work on asset allocation...

<pet peeve>
Mr Sharpe, a very respectable fellow, has won no Nobel prize, for the simple reason that there is no Nobel prize for economics. Mr Sharpe won the Riksbank prize, formally the Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne. It's an attempt to hijack the fame of Mr Nobel's name and foundation in order to burnish the reputation of some low-life money shufflers.

There are prizes in five subjects set forth and funded from Mr Nobel's will which are what are commonly and reasonably understood to be Nobel Prizes. Additionally, there is now a separate "Sverige Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" which was dreamt up in the '60s to give a gloss of respectability to the dismal science and funded by the Bank of Sweden, not by Mr Nobel's will. A blatant theft and smearing of the good name of a perfectly respectable arms merchant.

In separate news, I myself have endowed the Mungo Fitch Award in Self-Aggrandizing Award Naming in Memory of Alfred Nobel, or the "Nobel Price for Egotism" for short, the first edition of which was won (and heartily deserved) by the Sveriges Rijksbank.

</pet peeve>

Jim