David Laidler

"Roughly speaking, Lundberg argued that Gunnar Myrdal's work has been enormously important, and noted that there was local pressure on the Nobel Prize Committee to recognize him, but wondered how it would be received abroad if this was done. (Remember that the Prize was then rather new, and Lundberg had to be careful about its reputation.) Giersch's reply was that the quality of the work surely merited the award, but maybe the politics of it would be easier if there was a joint recipient who was neither Swedish nor shared Myrdal's views – what about Hayek? That's it – is this where Hayek's prize came from, or was he already high on the list, or what?"

"I did, and still do, think that New Classical Economics has quite a bit in common with the Austrians (so did Robert Lucas, and I am surprised to find that I did not refer to this in the early 1980s, so I was either careless or did not know about it until a bit later)."