US economists in the buzz for Nobel

US economists in the buzz for Nobel

STOCKHOLM

Research into market behavior and the psychology of decision-making could be awarded the Nobel prize for economics on Monday and improve the weak U.S. representation among this year’s Nobel laureates.

Betting agency Ladbrokes says American behavioral economists Richard Thaler at the University of Chicago and Robert Shiller of Yale University are the top bets for this year’s award.

Thaler is considered a pioneer in behavioral finance, having studied the psychology of decision-making and the behavior of markets, and Shiller is an influential economist who long predicted the U.S. housing bubble.

The $1.5 million prize is not among the original awards established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in his 1895 will, but was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in his memory.

The economics prize — the last of this year’s Nobel announcements — offers the U.S. a chance to boost its meager tally among the 2010 winners. So far there is only one American laureate: Richard Heck, who shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with two Japanese researchers.

Google tests cars without drivers

WASHINGTON

Google Inc. is road-testing cars that steer, stop and start without a human driver, the company says.

The cars have traveled a total of 140,000 miles on major California roads without much human intervention, according to a posting Saturday on Google’s corporate blog.

The goal is to “help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions,” project leader Sebastian Thrun wrote in the blog post.

It’s not the first signal that Google wants to change how people get form place to place. In a speech Sept. 29 before the Techcrunch “Disrupt” conference, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said “your car should drive itself. It just makes sense.”

Gas prices jump 8 cents in 2 weeks

CAMARILLO, Calif.

A new survey finds the average price of regular gasoline in the United States has jumped 8.23 cents in the past two weeks. The Lundberg Survey of fuel prices released Sunday says the price of a gallon of regular is $2.77.

Analyst Trilby Lundberg says the average price for a gallon of midgrade was $2.91, and premium was at $3.02.

Tucson, Ariz., had the lowest average price among cities surveyed at $2.51 a gallon for regular. San Francisco was highest among surveyed cities at $3.08.

Diesel was at $3.09, up nearly 10 cents.

Talisman, Statoil buy gas-rich Texas land

CALGARY, Alberta

A Canadian-Norwegian joint venture is buying 97,000 acres of natural-gas-rich land in Texas’ Eagle Ford area, the companies said Sunday.

Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc. and Stavanger, Norway-based Statoil are paying $1.325 billion for the land, which belongs to Enduring Resources, Talisman said.

Associated Press