An Award for Calling the Crash

In 2010 there was a contest to discover and recognize the economists who foresaw and warned of the crash that came in 2008. Fred Foldvary foretold the crash exceptionally early and exceptionally precisely, writing in a refereed journal article in 1997: “the next major bust, 18 years after the 1990 downturn, will be around 2008, if there is no major interruption such as a global war.” Although Foldvary was nominated for the prize by some thirteen separate individuals, his name was excluded by the prize organizers. Instead the prize went to two of the “family” members of the prize organization, and one other person. I compare the predictions by the prize-winning “family” members to the prediction by Foldvary. The ideas represented by Foldvary’s research deserve attention.