Jean Tirole wins the Nobel prize in economic sciences - as it happened

And that’s a good time to stop.

Reminder. Our summary of why Jean Tirole won is here.

Rolling reaction starts here.

And video clips of the announcement are here

Thanks for reading and commenting today, and for following the Guardian’s coverage of the Nobel Prizes this year. Goodbye!

And finally, over to the man himself.

The Nobel Prize team have uploaded in interview with Jean Tirole, in which he explains how he told his wife about his win, and then his mother:

Oh, I first, to be honest, she is 90 years old and I first ask her to sit before I told her of the news.

[Laughs] So, but yes, she was, my mother used to be a teacher, French and Latin and Greek teacher. You know, knowledge is very important to her, very important. And of course, for my wife and my children also. I see one of my daughters is on Skype with me from London and in fact it is actually quite moving for the whole family of course.

Tirole also shows why he has a reputation as such decent bloke by hailing former colleague Jean-Jacques Laffont, who died in 2004, as his “mentor” and “dear friend”.

Jean-Jacques Laffont passed away.. and deserved to be with me today in this Prize for regulation and competition policy.

Now the Nobel awards are over, Swedish newpaper The Local has announced its Alternative Nobel Prize list.

Here’s a flavour:

Worst Example of Gender Equality: We weren’t impressed by the not-very-noble fact that there were only two female winners out of a total 13 laureates. But considering there have been hardly any women Laureates at all in the past, we’re moving in the right direction.

Most Helpful Simile: The Nobel Committee in Chemistry did a good job in helping us all understand the laureates’ work with microscope and molecules. They compared it to looking at a city of buildings but not being able to see the people inside them. The laureates’ work allowed us to see these “people” inside. Still don’t get it? Read more.

Best Laureate Name: Professor Hell, who took home the prize in Physics.

Roll on 2015!

Here’s the full list: The Local’s alternative guide to the Nobel Prizes

European Commission Vice President Joaquín Almunia, who leads competition policy across the EU, has “warmly congratulated” Jean Tirole.

Almunia, who has probed Google for years and announced huge fines on Europe’s banks for market abuses, says Tirole’s work has made a difference.

“For competition enforcers, his work has been of major importance. He is one of the sharpest economic theorists having contributed to our understanding of market power and how regulation may effectively curb it.

We owe Jean Tirole so much. His work has been central to the economic analysis underpinning many of our instruments in competition policy and beyond. This includes work on vertical agreements, mergers, competition in network industries and so much more. I finally also wish to pay tribute to Jean Tirole’s renowned humility.”

US professor Tyler Cowen also mentioned that Tirole is a “very nice person” (see earlier post). A victory for the good guys?

OK, here’s your homework, class.

The Council for Foreign Relations has rounded up links to many of Jean Tirole’s papers on competition policy and regulation. They’re looking for intelligent comments on them too:

New Nobel Economics Winner Jean Tirole on Energy, Climate, and Environment

Here’s another photo showing Jean Tirole, right, being congratulated by colleagues at the Toulouse School of Economics:

View image in fullscreen

Over in Quartz, Tim Fernholz has explained how Jean Tirole’s work has plenty of applications for politicians grappling with new technology.

Used correctly, it helps governments get to grips with new platforms such as Netflix, and understand why some software is released under open source licences.

In countries—indeed, in most of the world—where it is assumed that market competition generates the most prosperity, there are still markets that allow monopolies or near-monopolies: communications and transportation networks, military materiel, natural resources. Governments need strategies to regulate monopolistic behavior and prevent dominant companies from jacking up prices on everyone, but they also need to avoid forcing prices so low as to make the business unsustainable.

They need, in effect, to simulate competition without having all the information to do so, the Achilles’ heel of central planning.

Tirole and his collaborators have for decades been using game theory to understand this problem....more here

Jean Tirole has enjoyed a hero’s welcome back in Toulouse, as this photo shows:

If you missed today’s announcement, don’t worry. The Nobel Prize team have done a brilliant job uploading video clips explaining why Jean Tirole won.

Here are some of the best:

Check out their twitter feed for more.

Our economics editor, Larry Elliott, is on sparkling form explaining why Jean Tirole’s work deserves such recognition.

Here’s a flavour:

It could be argued that Google’s Eric Schmidt is as powerful today as John D Rockefeller was when he was at the helm of Standard Oil. Booksellers worry about the dominance of Amazon.

What the judges liked about Tirole was that his work goes beyond dispensing general advice to regulators about how to prevent market abuses. Rather, he insists that there is no one size-fits-all solution, and that each industry must be regulated according to its own structure. What is needed for banking will differ from what’s needed for the online search sector.

Often, it is hard to see the relevance of the economics Nobel to the real world. This is not one of those years, because Tirole’s work has a practical application. Regulators should take heed - and act.

More here: Why Jean Tirole’s work matters in the Age of Google

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has also welcomed France’s double success at this year’s Nobel awards, tweeting that:

“After Patrick Modiano, another Frenchman in the firmament. Congratulations to Jean Tirole. A thumb in the eye for French bashing,”

George Cooper, the financial author (see previous post), agrees with Tyler Cowen that the Swedish Academy have made a good choice.

Handing the prize to Jean Tirole, for his work on effective regulation, is an “implicit recognition that markets are not efficient” and that regulation is necessary, said Cooper.

He adds:

“Moving beyond the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) dogma is a is sign of progress.”

One of last year’s winners, Eugene Fama, helped to develop the EMH.

Danny Blanchflower, labour market economist and former Bank of England policymaker, has criticised the choice of Jean Tirole.

He suggests that the judges should reward economists who discover actual laws that work in the real economy, rather than those who merely theorise:

If this issue takes your fancy, may I recommend reading Money, Blood and Revolution by George Cooper?

It argues that economics is in crisis, and “living in a kind of Alice in Wonderland state believing in multiple, inconsistent, things at the same time.”

The premise of this book is that:

the internal inconsistencies between economic theories - the apparently unresolvable debates between leading economists and the incoherent policies of our governments - are symptomatic of economics being in a crisis.....

But George comes up with some encouraging solutions. It’s a great read (with some good jokes too)