Is the Nobel a Lagging or Leading Indicator?

Mario Rizzo at NYU writes to raise some serious doubts that we should ever get too excited about the Nobel selection:

The Nobel prize in economics may not be important except to the recipient and his immediate colleagues. Why? Because it is for past achievements. The attitude in economics today is that the past is dead and was the ‘victim’ of a pre-scientific attitude.  I cannot think of a Nobel prize that has changed the direction of economics in any important or sustained way, aside from Hayek’s.  People will say how nice Tom Schelling got the award (along with Robert Aumann whom we shall soon forget). But those who loved Schelling will continue and those who don’t will continue.  Economists working today will not try to imitate Schelling in order to get the prize tomorrow. The prize won’t be awarded to another Schelling. The Nobel prize is a lagging, not leading, indicator of what is “good” work in economics.