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>The award’s real name is the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.” It was not established by Nobel, but supposedly in memor

>The award’s real name is the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.” It was not established by Nobel, but supposedly in memory of Nobel. It’s a ruse and a PR trick, and I mean that literally. And it was done completely against the wishes of the Nobel family. >Members of the Nobel family are among the harshest, most persistent critics of the economics prize, and members of the family have repeatedly called for the prize to be abolished or renamed. In 2001, on the 100th anniversery of the Nobel Prizes, four family members published a letter in the Swedish paper Svenska Dagbladet, arguing that the economics prize degrades and cheapens the real Nobel Prizes. >Most recently, in 2004, three prominent Swedish scientists and members of the Nobel committee published an open letter in a Swedish newspaper savaging the fraudulent “scientific” credentials of the Swedish Central Bank Prize in Economics. “The economics prize diminishes the value of the other Nobel prizes. If the prize is to be kept, it must be broadened in scope and be disassociated with Nobel,” they wrote in the letter, arguing that achievements of most of the economists who win the prize are so abstract and disconnected from the real world as to utterly meaningless. If you'd like to read about the history of the scam that is the "Nobel Prize in Economics", there's plenty more in this article: http://www.alternet.org/economy/there-no-nobel-prize-economics http://www.alternet.org/economy/there-no-nobel-prize-economi...

rm999 13y ago
I'm aware of the controversy, but it comes from a very vocal but small minority. That alternet article you linked to is a great example of the absurd bias and political agenda the minority has. Their main gripe is political, not factual - the article is about how many of the prizes go to "theories that concentrated wealth among the top 1%". I called it a de facto prize, but it's also really a de jure prize: the winner is determined in the same way as the others, the prize is presented at the same ceremony as the others, and it's listed along the other nobel prizes on official lists. The prize carries at least as much prestige as the other prizes to both experts in the field and to the public. Also, I don't see how family members of Nobel have any authority on the matter (they don't), and I think the prize is far more meaningful and free of bias than something like the peace prize.
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  Well, yeah, the prize is political because all who get Nobel Prizes in Economics are keynsians of different sort. When you take guys like Krugman - who has Nobel Prize in Economics - and just look at their track record and what they are in favor of like this 2002 piece in which Krugman advocates the FED to create a housing bubble: http://www.businessinsider.com/krugman-in-02-greenspan-needs-to-create-a-housing-bubble-2009-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/krugman-in-02-greenspan-needs... You really start wondering why complete idiots and morons like this are worthy of the Nobel Prize. And then his response to this piece when asked about it in 2013 is even worse than the original piece. Krugman says in 2013 about his 2002 article: "What I said was that the only way the Fed could get traction would be if it could inflate a housing bubble. And that’s just what happened." Let me me repeat here for you this Nobel Prize Genius: "The ONLY way for the FED to get traction in 2002 was to INFLATE HOUSING BUBBLE" Really? Like really, really? That's the ONLY way? Go to a bubble, so it bursts and destroys the US economy for years? He really, like really, really repeats that nonsene in 2013? You must be kidding me! If he can't come up with better idea to finish a crisis but with creating a bubble? Wow! Just wow!!! And that's your Nobel Prize Winner in action. He's a moron. Yet, a professor and nobel prize winner. Economics has nothing to do with science, it is too rooted in ideologies. Left or right. But still, having prize for it is asking for trouble. And that's just one example of Krugman saying nonsense. I could go on and on.
  - wisty 13y ago
    Today I learnt that Friedrich Hayek and Eugene Fama are Keynsians.
    - mikecb 13y ago
      Milton Friedman too! Not to mention the dozens of others which were not awarded to macroeconomists. Daniel Kahneman and Herbert Simon would especially be surprised to be called Keynsians, given that they are a psychologist and a political scientist, respectively.
      - 13y ago

rm999 13y ago

I'm aware of the controversy, but it comes from a very vocal but small minority. That alternet article you linked to is a great example of the absurd bias and political agenda the minority has. Their main gripe is political, not factual - the article is about how many of the prizes go to "theories that concentrated wealth among the top 1%". I called it a de facto prize, but it's also really a de jure prize: the winner is determined in the same way as the others, the prize is presented at the same ceremony as the others, and it's listed along the other nobel prizes on official lists. The prize carries at least as much prestige as the other prizes to both experts in the field and to the public. Also, I don't see how family members of Nobel have any authority on the matter (they don't), and I think the prize is far more meaningful and free of bias than something like the peace prize.

LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
Well, yeah, the prize is political because all who get Nobel Prizes in Economics are keynsians of different sort. When you take guys like Krugman - who has Nobel Prize in Economics - and just look at their track record and what they are in favor of like this 2002 piece in which Krugman advocates the FED to create a housing bubble: http://www.businessinsider.com/krugman-in-02-greenspan-needs-to-create-a-housing-bubble-2009-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/krugman-in-02-greenspan-needs... You really start wondering why complete idiots and morons like this are worthy of the Nobel Prize. And then his response to this piece when asked about it in 2013 is even worse than the original piece. Krugman says in 2013 about his 2002 article: "What I said was that the only way the Fed could get traction would be if it could inflate a housing bubble. And that’s just what happened." Let me me repeat here for you this Nobel Prize Genius: "The ONLY way for the FED to get traction in 2002 was to INFLATE HOUSING BUBBLE" Really? Like really, really? That's the ONLY way? Go to a bubble, so it bursts and destroys the US economy for years? He really, like really, really repeats that nonsene in 2013? You must be kidding me! If he can't come up with better idea to finish a crisis but with creating a bubble? Wow! Just wow!!! And that's your Nobel Prize Winner in action. He's a moron. Yet, a professor and nobel prize winner. Economics has nothing to do with science, it is too rooted in ideologies. Left or right. But still, having prize for it is asking for trouble. And that's just one example of Krugman saying nonsense. I could go on and on.
- wisty 13y ago
  Today I learnt that Friedrich Hayek and Eugene Fama are Keynsians.
  - mikecb 13y ago
    Milton Friedman too! Not to mention the dozens of others which were not awarded to macroeconomists. Daniel Kahneman and Herbert Simon would especially be surprised to be called Keynsians, given that they are a psychologist and a political scientist, respectively.
    - 13y ago