"Unlike the Nobel Prizes for Medicine, Chemistry, Physics, Literature and Peace, which were created by Nobel in his 1896 will and first awarded in 1901, the Economics Prize was conceived by Sweden's central bank in 1968 to mark its tricentenary and first awarded a year later."
https://web.archive.org/web/20071014012248/http://www.theloc...
And the story of how this came to be is absolutely wild. See
Mirowski, Philip. 2020. “The Neoliberal Ersatz Nobel Prize”. Pp. 219-254 in Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, edited by Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian and Philip Mirowski. Verso. Fulltext: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/215796/1/Full-text-b...
HN discussions are predictable:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566804
Oh, there's much more, even: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I'll add the obligatory Dilbert take: https://verisoeconomica.wordpress.com/2022/10/10/the-2022-no...
Sure, it's paid by the Swedish central bank instead of the Nobel foundation, and it wasn't established by Alfred Nobel himself. Nobody cares. Value of such awards depends entirely on peer recognition, not on who pays or what exact labels they carry. Selection for economics is done by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, like the other science awards.
Yeah, "this isn't even a real prize, it wasn't selected at a time when it wasn't considered a distinct academic field by a benefactor concerned primarily about what his obituary might say" is even more tedious than pointing out that the Turing Award wasn't actually conceived by Alan. Much better arguments about issues with things individual Economic Nobel winners argued for than that...
" it's paid by the Swedish central bank instead of the Nobel foundation"
And those who pay the piper call the tune.
Hence the brand of 'economics' that gets the gong.
Well, the thing is Economics is a very unique discipline. It's not quite a science but also not merely philosophy. Its object of study is affected by the study itself. It's very strange. That's why mutually exclusive economic theories have won the Nobel prize!
His descendants states that Nobel wouldn't have wanted a prize in his name. He didn't like economics because it is the science of greed.
"Nobody cares" gotcha. Greed never cares.
The issue with this prize isn't that economics is not a real science. Nobel prizes are primarily vulgarization and communication tools, and as such are inhenrently political. The Sveriges Riksbank is piggy-backing off the popularity of Nobel Prizes to advocate for a certain vision (their vision) of economic orthodoxy. It is overwhelmingly awarded to white western men, who, more relevantly, all share an anglocentric neoliberalist vision of economics. This, I hope, we are allowed to take issue with.
EDIT: apparently not. I would rather you explain to me why than downvote mindlessly.
White western men are no more represented in Economics than other hard sciences, and concensus in Economics is no different in East Asia and the rest of the world excepting the authoritarian Socialist experiments.
There's no "consensus" in economics, let alone.
Of course, there is consensus in economics.
It's a field which is mostly interested in models and anyone can agree that a model is consistant and implies surprising things even if they think the hypotheses it makes don't faithfully represent reality.
It's endlessly fascinating to me how some people will happily disparage economics while having very little idea of what it's actually about.
Modelling isn't the higher intellectual pursuit it's made out to be. Imo designing theoretical models post-hoc to "support" a desired conclusion is not unheard of in econ/finance.
That's nonsensical. There is overwhelming consensus over many things, e.g. tariffs.
I don't see what point you're trying to make. Do you mean to claim that the Sveriges Riksbank is unbiased in who it chooses to give their price to? Unless you believe that 90% of economists come from the US (and the remaining 10% from the UK), you should take issue with this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_l...
> concensus in Economics
That's what I was talking about. This "consensus" is completely made-up and propped up by, among others, the Sveriges Riksbank. To the point that there are people like you who feel they should defend them against the evil "authoritarian Socialist", because of course, as we all know, that's all there is besides Neoliberalism. I sincerly hope you consider broadening your horizons, maybe start by Thomas Piketty's work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty
It's a, "They hate him because they told the truth," situation. Frankly, it applies to the Peace Prize as well, but this one has an even more naked agenda. It would be a disservice not to mention its history every time it's brought up, because it is ever-salient to any discussion of the merit of the winners.
Well you are on an anglo-centric neoliberalist imperialist site filled with people that are economic beneficiaries of that. Basic economic game theory that you'd be downvoted.
Extreme poverty rates have been plummeting precisely because East Asian countries became economic beneficiaries. The rest of the world operates on the same principles.
Predictable...but are those aholes wrong...? :-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44013692
Economics violates Popper demarcation criterion. Economic theories can't be falsified because you can't run controlled experiments on economies, rewind history, or isolate variables.
When models fail, economists adjust assumptions ...
Unfalsifiable = Unscientific.
Neither are litterature and peace.
They are not pretending to be sciences.
> When models fail, economists adjust assumptions ...
When models fail, physicist adjust hypotheses ...
Physics can test those hypotheses under controlled conditions...
> Physics can test those hypotheses under controlled conditions
I genuinely have no idea why so many commenters on HN will spout nonsense based on high school curriculum with the confidence of a PhD when it comes to economics, but won’t embarrass themselves in other fields.
Yes, economics—particularly microeconomics—is constantly subject to experimentation. Macroeconomics is closer to astronomy, in that models are developed, novel data sources sought, old models tested and then validated or rejected. Also like astronomy, or perhaps more accurately fundamental physics, it’s currently off in a loop of DSGE optimizations which are mathematically pretty for the field but not super interesting outside it. (This work is not in that category.)
Not always/limited in some areas (astrophysics come to mind where we, e.g., cannot (yet) create a star under controlled conditions). Testing hypotheses or predictions vs observations is also a valid method.
Science is not about where you test hypotheses, but how. Astrophysics builds falsifiable models and checks them against reality like spectra, gravitational waves, etc... When predictions fail, theories change.
If these were economists, they would check if their equations match the economic universe they live in. :-) Instead, they conclude the agents just “did not behave rationally enough”.
That's just not true. The models have real predictive power, they just have limitations. Behavioral economics, which tackles this frontier is still a growing field. Thaler, Kahneman, and Taversky won the prize in 2017 for building the bridge between economic theory and individual decision-making.
At the risk of being inflammatory-- These arguments are the equivalent of saying that Newton didn't really do physics because his models of mechanics break down at high enough speeds and small enough scales.
Not about controlled conditions then necessarily.
Not really my experience with economics - a lot of awareness of reality vs model (regardless of how "beautiful" they are).
Argentina managed to save itself from hyperinflation by drastically cutting spending. By your logic, this could not be in the least bit predictable and inflation as a phenomenon doesn't even matter.
Supposing it did was fairly predictable that not setting money on fire would help recovery, what does it matter that there is no controlled scientific experiment involved? Or to put it another way, are there no facts to be gleaned from data?
Argentina didn't manage shit, else they wouldn't have to be bailed out by the Trump admin. This should come as a surprise to no one, "General AnCap" may have artifically and temporarily given the impression of good numbers by destroying his country's public infrastructure, but this is at the direct cost of the future. Now they're starting to pay the price.
> Argentina didn't manage shit
You're deflecting. Curtailing inflation was an outcome of policy. The U.S. had fuck-all to do with it. Unless you're willing to acknowledge something so basic there's nothing else to say to someone disinterested in good faith discussion
Ehh... you're both wrong. Argentina ended 2024 with an annual inflation rate close to 100%. That's significantly lower, but still hyperinflation. It should be lower this year, but how much is the question.
Whether that's maintainable long term is probably the decisive judgement. Argentina has had many cycles of hyperinflation, reset, hyperinflation again. The current bailout is not exactly a positive indicator.
Do you think Poppers demarcation criterion is falsifiable?
It is not falsifiable because it is not a hypothesis but a framework for recognizing science.
Rejecting Popper for that is like rejecting reasoning itself because you can’t run a control experiment on it...but then one turns into an economist...
Nice use of recursion...
I mentally place economic sciences sort of halvway between e.g. physics and social sciences on some imagined scientific rigidity scale.
They seem rigid enough to be useful, but I hope they can be done better. Perhaps using better simulation tools.
Economics _is_ a social science, and a politicized one at that. Sociology is more rigid than economics when it comes to validation of theories and choice of methods (statistics vs. mathematical models filled with assumptions). Economics, especially neoclassical economics, has a serious problem in prediction quality, a physics theory would have been abandoned by now if it was so bad at predicting real-life phenomena as the neoclassical school of economics is.
If sociology is so much more rigorous, why aren't sociologists invading the economic field? Surely they can use their rigorous statistics to produce papers on economic matters and put the entire field to shame?
If anything, we're seeing the opposite results, where economists publish influential papers demographics, crime and social structure.
"When dealing with humans, linear regression is going to be good enough" is a huge assumption to make.
Are you saying linear regression = statistics? Linear regression is something you learn in your first class, it's hardly ever the main model used.
And if you're going to claim that economists are publishing influential papers in other fields - and especially if you're claiming that they're doing so in an unprecedented way, with no inter-disciplinary collaboration - please provide some examples. And if you're thinking of Freakonomics, know that no researcher takes Freakonomics seriously, and neither should you.
As for sociologists "invading" economics, they sort of are. Economics and sociology have quite a bit of overlap, and researchers from the two fields often collaborate. And any group researching economic phenomena, even an inter-disciplinary one involving sociologists, would be identified as economists, not sociologists, by people reading their work. Although David Graeber, an anthropologist, did write an excellent book on economic phenomena in "Debt: the first 5000 years", and it has done quite well. You could say that it's "influential".
Unfortunately, neoclassical economics also has wide political support among the people it benefits: wealthy people and institutions, e.g. banks. Which also means they get bankrolled (hah) much more than other social scientists, which means they get preferential treatment. E.g., this very "Nobel prize" in economy that this theead is about is funded by a bank.
The force to change economics qould have to come from within economics, perhaps from behavioural economics, or new Keynesian economics (the first one seems more promising), or even from movements like degrowth or circular economics. You can't expect a sociologist to fix a different field, and that wasn't the point. The point was simply that sociology doesn't suffer this embarassment because they are not burdened by ideological pressure backed by monies interest.
Define neoclassical economics beyond its use in the blogossphere
It's a school of economics that became dominant in the 60s, it emphasises free market dynamics, much like the classical school, and especially focuses on consumption and optimizing economic actors, these actors are a very simple (and unrealistic) model of consumers. They also neglect production as an aspect of the economy.
Fun fact: The neoclassical economic school managed to remove the word "political" from "political economy" at the turn of the 20th century.
This is completely false. The opposite is true. Economics had drastically improved reproduction over decades.
Please provide some proof that neoclassical economics has done this.
I mean, I think the onus is on you to prove the opposite.
>This critique sets the stage for a more political debate.
oh spare me. Social sciences are inherently political. They've always been political and they will always be political. Denying merely makes it worse. that's how you end up with the racialist anthropology of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Don't hang a picture of a dog turd on your front door and cry about all the people pointing it out.
Sure, but if they keep awarding this non Nobel prize with a deliberately confusing name people will keep bringing it up.
The other solution would he some equivilent of a community note for it every year, it seems like things work as is though.
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