The stock market has been neither winner nor loser during the ongoing budget impasse, Robert Shiller told CNBC Tuesday, a day after winning the Nobel Prize in economics.
With Congress apparently nearing a deal to settle a battle that has pushed the U.S. to the brink of defaulting on its debt, the Yale economist said equities have little to show for it in either direction.
"Part of what's under grabs in Congress right now is this traditional American spirit that you can make money and you can keep it," Shiller said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "That's under debate now, so we have this budget, this debt crisis."
(Read more: Nobel prize winner warns of 'bubbly' home prices)
Shiller's work is widely known in the markets. He tracks his own measure of the price-to-equity ratio and, along with S&P, releases a monthly housing price gauge known as the Case-Shiller Index.
His Nobel was for his work in showing how markets determine value.
In his assessment of current patterns, he worries that housing growth will slow but said the market remains fairly strong though it remains "risky."
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"But it's not necessarily bad for the stock market," he said of the fight in Congress. "The Republicans want rich people to keep the money. That has to be good for the stock market. Of course, bad for the stock market is the reputational loss that this country could lose.
"So it's a wash. I don't see any clear outcome for the markets. So I don't have any alarm bells for the market at this moment."
—By CNBC's Jeff Cox. Follow him on Twitter @JeffCoxCNBCcom.
