He is one of the six economists on the list of probable winners complied by Clarivate Analytics, a company that does academic and scientific research and maintains a list of dozens of possible Nobel Prize winners based on research citations.
The entry to the list does not guarantee that Rajan is a front-runner but he is a probable who stands a chance to win.
Rajan, whose three year term as Reserve Bank Governor ended on September 4, 2016, is considered a candidate for his "contributions illuminating the dimensions of decisions in corporate finance", Clarivate said.
The Nobel Prize in Economics will be announced on Monday.
According to Clarivate Analytics, the list of possible Nobel Prize winners based on research citations include Colin Camerer of the California Institute of Technology and George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University (for pioneering research in behavioural economics and in neuroeconomics); Robert Hall of Stanford University (for his analysis of worker productivity and studies of recessions and unemployment); and Michael Jensen of Harvard, Stewart Myers of MIT and Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago (for their contributions illuminating the dimensions of decisions in corporate finance).
Rajan, who at 40 was the first non-western and the youngest to become the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, shot to big fame three years after he predicted a financial crisis at an annual gathering of economists and bankers in the US in 2005.
He was appointed RBI Governor by the previous UPA government in 2013 and although he wanted a second term he was not offered an extension, which most of his predecessors got, by the current NDA regime.
He is currently the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago.
