Thomas Sargent of New York University, this year’s co-recipient of the Nobel in economic science, has signed on as a consultant for Hutchin Hill, a multistrategy hedge fund with $1.5 billion in assets under management. Mr. Sargent is credited with changing the field of macroeconomics. Much of his research focused on the relationship between economic policy and macroeconomic variables like gross domestic product or employment, specifically how people and institutions change their expectations in response to policy changes. He developed quantitative methods to evaluate the effect of these policy prescriptions on households and firms. Like others before him Mr. Sargent apparently hears the calling of the "little black box."  Others who took the plunge into the hedge fund industry include:  former presidential chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers (he consulted for D.E. Shaw);  Nobel Prize winner  Myron Scholes (he was present at the blow-up at Long-Term Capital Mgmt);  and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan (a board member at Paulson & Company). While some of that research is pretty lofty, the rationale for hiring someone like Mr. Sargent is simple - that he can help the hedge fund figure out the effect of policy changes on people’s thinking, a critical element when judging how an economy will fare. Hutchin Hill operates a number of strategies, but its founder, Neil Chriss, is most well-known as a “quant,” or mathematician capable of writing complex computer algorithms that execute trades electronically.  In 2008, Hutchin Hill returned about 13%, a significant achievement in the broader market chaos.  Since then, it returned about 17% in 2009 (a banner year for hedge funds), 7% in 2010, and for 2011 it's just about flat.  [Dealbook 11/2/11]