Sep 25, 2026

Two big orders two minutes apart, then a night of noise

On Thursday morning somebody bought 500 Athey contracts at 15 and 500 Pakes contracts at 69, two minutes apart. By midnight Pakes had traded down to 18 and Athey up to 60, both on a handful of contracts. The book underneath barely moved.

For two months the Kalshi market was quiet. On Thursday morning it woke up.

The two orders. At 10:00 Pacific, somebody bought 500 contracts of Susan Athey at 15 cents. Two minutes later, somebody bought 500 contracts of Ariel Pakes at 69. Same size, two minutes apart, on the two names who work where economics meets technology and markets. It is the same size and price as the Athey fill on Clarivate morning, September 17. We cannot see who placed them. We can see that it is the only real money this market has attracted all season, and that it went to the same two people.

The noise after. Everything that followed was one or two contracts at a time. Pakes bounced between 49 and 68 through the evening, then sold off to 8, 15 and 18 just before midnight. Athey traded about three contracts at 59 and 60 at the same minute. Luigi Zingales slid from 6 to 2 on a 42-contract sale. Richard Blundell traded for the first time this morning, at 7.

Why the board jumps and the book does not. We record the last trade, as our method says, so Athey reads 60 tonight and Pakes 18. The resting book says something calmer. Anyone can buy Athey at 15 and Pakes at 22 right now, and the bids sit at 7 and 15. A 60-cent print on three contracts, with the ask at 15, is a price nobody else would pay. It moves our number because our rule is simple and public, and a thin market will do this. Read the bid and ask in each note alongside the number.

The one we watch. It is still Athey. The only large orders on the book, twice now, have been buys of Athey at 15, and she remains the one name both Clarivate and Kalshi back. Pakes got the larger bet on Thursday and gave most of it back by midnight on almost no volume. That is the question for the next two weeks: whether anyone besides this one buyer shows up.

The prize is announced Monday, October 12, at 11:45 CEST at the earliest, the last of the 2026 announcements.

The board after this update

Contenders Strong work, right age, right timing.

#		Candidate	Field	Sources	Score
1	–	Susan C. Athey Stanford Graduate School of Business	Market design	2	68.6
2	–	Hal R. Varian University of California, Berkeley (emeritus); formerly Chief Economist, Google	Market design	1	42.9
2	–	Sidney G. Winter The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (emeritus)	Innovation and firms	1	42.9
2	–	Michael D. Woodford Columbia University	Monetary	1	42.9

Darkhorses Respected, lower probability, could surprise.

#		Candidate	Field	Sources	Score
5	–	Ariel Pakes Harvard University	Industrial organization	2	22.0
6	–	Robert J. Barro Harvard University	Macro	2	19.0
7	▲1	Ernst Fehr University of Zurich	Behavioral	2	18.6
8	▲1	Matthew Rabin Harvard University	Behavioral	2	18.1
9	▼3	Richard Blundell University College London / Institute for Fiscal Studies	Labor	2	17.3
10	–	Partha Dasgupta University of Cambridge	Environment	2	16.9

The Field On our radar. The live sources are not pricing them.

#		Candidate	Field	Sources	Score
11	–	Manuel Arellano CEMFI, Madrid	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	W. Brian Arthur Santa Fe Institute	Innovation and firms	1	14.3
11	–	David B. Audretsch Indiana University	Innovation and firms	1	14.3
11	–	David Autor MIT	Labor	1	14.3
11	–	Steven T. Berry Yale University	Industrial organization	1	14.3
11	–	Marianne Bertrand University of Chicago Booth School of Business	Labor	1	14.3
11	–	Jagdish Bhagwati Columbia University	Trade	1	14.3
11	–	Olivier Blanchard Peterson Institute for International Economics / MIT	Macro	1	14.3
11	–	Nicholas Bloom Stanford University	Macro	1	14.3
11	–	Steve Bond University of Oxford	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Samuel Bowles Santa Fe Institute	Behavioral	1	14.3
11	–	Colin Camerer California Institute of Technology	Behavioral	1	14.3
11	–	Raj Chetty Harvard University	Public economics	1	14.3
11	–	Wesley M. Cohen Duke University, Fuqua School of Business	Innovation and firms	1	14.3
11	–	Janet Currie Princeton University	Public economics	1	14.3
11	–	David A. Dickey North Carolina State University	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Avinash K. Dixit Princeton University	Trade	1	14.3
11	–	Kenneth R. French Dartmouth College (Tuck School of Business)	Finance	1	14.3
11	–	Wayne A. Fuller Iowa State University	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Jordi Galí CREI, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona School of Economics	Monetary	1	14.3
11	–	Mark Gertler New York University	Monetary	1	14.3
11	–	Edward Glaeser Harvard University	Growth	1	14.3
11	–	Mark Granovetter Stanford University	Theory	1	14.3
11	–	Gene M. Grossman Princeton University	Trade	1	14.3
11	–	Robert E. Hall Stanford University / Hoover Institution	Macro	1	14.3
11	–	Jerry A. Hausman Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Elhanan Helpman Harvard University	Trade	1	14.3
11	–	David Forbes Hendry University of Oxford	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Søren Johansen University of Copenhagen	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Katarina Juselius University of Copenhagen	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Lawrence F. Katz Harvard University	Labor	1	14.3
11	–	Israel M. Kirzner New York University	Theory	1	14.3
11	–	Nobuhiro Kiyotaki Princeton University	Macro	1	14.3
11	–	David M. Kreps Stanford Graduate School of Business	Theory	1	14.3
11	–	Anne Osborn Krueger Johns Hopkins University	Political economy	1	14.3
11	–	Richard Layard London School of Economics	Behavioral	1	14.3
11	–	James A. Levinsohn Yale University	Industrial organization	1	14.3
11	–	Daniel A. Levinthal University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School	Innovation and firms	1	14.3
11	–	John A. List University of Chicago	Behavioral	1	14.3
11	–	George Loewenstein Carnegie Mellon University	Behavioral	1	14.3
11	–	Charles F. Manski Northwestern University	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Paolo Mauro International Finance Corporation	Political economy	1	14.3
11	–	Marc Melitz Harvard University	Trade	1	14.3
11	–	John H. Moore University of Edinburgh	Theory	1	14.3
11	–	Sendhil Mullainathan MIT	Behavioral	1	14.3
11	–	Kevin M. Murphy University of Chicago Booth School of Business	Labor	1	14.3
11	–	Stewart C. Myers MIT Sloan School of Management	Finance	1	14.3
11	–	Andrew J. Oswald University of Warwick	Behavioral	1	14.3
11	–	Sam Peltzman University of Chicago Booth School of Business	Industrial organization	1	14.3
11	–	Pierre Perron Boston University	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	M. Hashem Pesaran University of Southern California	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Peter C. B. Phillips Yale University	Econometrics	1	14.3
11	–	Thomas Piketty Paris School of Economics	Inequality	1	14.3
11	–	Richard Posner University of Chicago Law School	Industrial organization	1	14.3
11	–	Raghuram Rajan University of Chicago Booth School of Business	Finance	1	14.3
11	–	Carmen M. Reinhart Harvard Kennedy School	Macro	1	14.3
11	–	Kenneth S. Rogoff Harvard University	Macro	1	14.3
11	–	Ariel Rubinstein Tel Aviv University / New York University	Theory	1	14.3
11	–	Emmanuel Saez UC Berkeley	Inequality	1	14.3
11	–	John B. Taylor Stanford University (Hoover Institution)	Monetary	1	14.3
11	–	David J. Teece UC Berkeley	Innovation and firms	1	14.3
11	–	Gabriel Zucman Paris School of Economics / UC Berkeley	Inequality	1	14.3
73	–	Andreu Mas-Colell Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Barcelona School of Economics (emeritus)	Theory	1	4.3
74	–	Luigi Zingales University of Chicago Booth School of Business	Finance	1	0.9