Star professors are leaving Harvard for other top schools.

The Harvard Crimson reports.

At the Margin: Harvard Economics’ Precarious Spot on Top

When it comes to Nobel laureates, Harvard has plenty to brag about. The 26 affiliates who have won the Prize—including five for the economic sciences—put Harvard in a comfortable place among its competitors: first.

But with one star professor’s decision to leave the school at the end of the year, Harvard may not only have lost its 27th Nobel. It may have lost its footing at the top of economics academia.

The news came as a shock and a huge blow. Faculty at Harvard and elsewhere have projected that professor Raj Chetty ’00—a MacArthur “Genius” Grant winner and one of the youngest tenured professors in the University’s history—will one day win the Nobel prize. Undergraduates, graduates, and colleagues alike adored him. And Chetty’s close ties to Harvard—he earned both his B.A. and Ph.D. here—only added to the sting of the loss.