There are lots of examples of techniques that won their inventors Nobels in Econ (and sometimes even sciences) going on to being used to make lots of money in finance.<p>A famous example being the Black Scholes model for option pricing, which won its inventors the Nobel Prize in Econ. Myron <i>Scholes</i> went on to create one of the first 'quant' funds (LTCM) back 1994 (which flamed out spectacularly during Russia's crisis in 1998.)