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2021 Nobel Prize for Economics
- cpach 5y agoPlease consider changing the title of this submission. IMHO, the correct title should be “The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2021”. Rationale: A prize for economics was not part of Alfred Nobel’s will. This prize was founded in the 1960’s by Riksbanken (The Central Bank of Sweden).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- legitster 5y agoBut the award and prize are today managed by the same governing body? This seems incredibly nitpicky. We wouldn't say a Harvard degree in physics is not a real Harvard degree just because it wasn't offered by John Harvard himself.
- styren 5y agoIf I create a school called "The University in Harvards Honor" and give myself a diploma, am I a Harvard alumni?
- mhh__ 5y agoIf Harvard decided to give it to you, then maybe?
- lowkey_ 5y agoWell this link is on nobelprize.org, the website of the official organization in charge of the Nobel Prize Committee. Thus, it's more like the comment you were replying to — creating a new degree program within Harvard University that John Harvard didn't authorize. Your analogy would be more accurate if this were not in fact created, endorsed, and run by the Nobel Foundation.
- styren 5y agoYou're right, but it was endorsed as a prize in his honor, not as a Nobel Prize with all that entails. Therefore it's incorrect to call it such. It's never called (or at least very seldomly) a Nobel Prize in Sweden as that isn't true.
- Godel_unicode 5y agoCounter-point: yes it is. https://www.thelocal.se/20211011/trio-share-nobel-prize-for-new-insights-about-the-labour-market/ https://www.thelocal.se/20211011/trio-share-nobel-prize-for-...
- legitster 5y agoThe Nobel Memorial Prize is still administered by the Nobel Foundation. This isn't a made up connection.
- koziserek 5y agowell it somewhat works for some Oxford Brookes grads ;)
- shapefrog 5y agoAh a fellow Oxford alumni, which college were you in old sport? Umm Brookes
- svachalek 5y agoIt seems like that governing body should get to decide what it's called, and while this distinction is news to me it appears that they indeed do not call it a Nobel Prize.
- gojomo 5y agoThe Foundation uses the longer name when being formal, but regularly includes the Economics Prize as a 'Nobel Prize' in headers & lists - such as their top-level menu 'Nobel Prizes' (which includes the 'Prize in Economic Sciences'), and their master list of 'Nobel Prize laureates'. So headlines calling it a 'Nobel' match the Nobel Foundation's usage in similar summary/header contexts.
- nabla9 5y agoIt's irrelevant historical detail.
- tuberelay 5y agoThere are big questions about the amount of gravitas that mainstream economists are afforded by people in power. Misnaming the econ prize as a "Nobel" prize and placing it's winners on the level of great physicists, chemists etc risks in exacerbating this problem. Much of the research done by econ memorial prize winners is walked back or proven false later. It isn't hard science. Much of it is politically driven and advice and practitioners are used by politicians to justify certain actions, many of them dysfunctional or corrupt.
- nabla9 5y agoIn quality metrics Econ Nobel is way ahead of literature and peace Nobel's. > Much of the research done by econ memorial prize winners is walked back or proven false later. It isn't hard science. This is not just true. Econ price almost always well earned, like now. Maybe there is some, but I can't think anyone who don't deserve it.
- gojomo 5y agoWhat Nobel-in-Economics work has been retracted? A Nobel-in-Chemistry went to an enthusiastic creator of chlorine gas chemical weapons (Haber). A Nobel-in-Medicine went to the inventor of the lobotomy (Moniz). Another Nobel-in-Medicine was awarded for false research about roundworms-causing-cancer (Fibiger). A Nobel-in-Peace went to the architect of secret carpet bombing that likely killed over 100,000 civilians in a non-combatant country (Kissinger). The Econ prize's shorter, more modern history has a better record!
- oldgradstudent 5y agoBut that's the name of the prize: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Call it by its name. The prize in Physics is the "Nobel Prize if Physics", and so are the other ones. The difference is intentional. A self-respecting discipline starts its own prize instead of buying legitimacy. Computer Science has the Turing Award, not the ACM Prize in Computer Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
- gojomo 5y agoIf the Economics prize is OK with the Nobel Foundation, which administers the prize along with the others, that should be good enough. (Did you know that the "MacArthur Fellows" – sometimes called "Genius Grants" – were also invented by the board of the MacArthur Foundation after John MacArthur's death?)
- TomVDB 5y agoWhen 1999 rolls over into 2000, you’re going to be telling everyone that we should be celebrating 2000 rolling into 2001 instead, right?
- nsajko 5y agoAbsolutely. The current title ("Nobel Prize for Economics") is simply false. The official name is "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2021", which can be shortened to "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences". Note that this is meaningfully and on purpose unlike the Physics or Chemistry prize situation. What's more, even the current name is controversial, seeing as it misappropriates the Nobel name with the goal of elevating the social status of some economists. Peter Nobel, for one, seems to be furious about it, and it definitely isn't done according to the wishes of Alfred Nobel. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economic_Sciences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econom... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies#Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies#Econ... Also see Monocasa's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28830961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28830961
- gojomo 5y agoA better title might name either the honored area-of-work, or the honorees. EG: "2021 Economics Nobel: Natural experiments help answer important questions" (an in-page header) ...or... "2021 Economics Nobel: Card, Angrist, & Imbens" ...or even if it fits... "2021 Economics Nobel to Card, Angrist, & Imbens for natural experiments"
- throwaway59553 5y agoWhy are "economists" taken seriously when they add absolutely nothing of value and are consistently wrong? A notable example: Krugman.
- ncann 5y agoYou expressed your opinion in a rather rugged way but I think many people share the same general sentiment, in that unlike physics or chemistry, economic and literature works are highly subjective and are often source of endless bickering.
- throwaway59553 5y agoThe reason why I put economists in quoatation mark it's precisely because most modern economists, that lean to any school, hammer their models to fit their theories, and have pretty much no practical value when you try to apply that in a real scenario with infinite variables. Unlike the hard sciences you mentioned, where every theory and model is subjected to intense scrutiny. Meanwhile, real economists, with a proven track record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_School_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_School_(economics)
- Mikeb85 5y agoEconomists in the public sphere are a fraction of practising economists and are often bought and paid for to push narratives. Or, as you said, hammer their models to fit their theories. Economics as a field though does create good models and predictions, but most of those are in the private sector, where money matters and weeds out faulty models.
- jjeaff 5y agoI think you should do a little research on the contributions of some of the Nobel laureates in economics. They have used novel economic theory to reduce world hunger, reduce childhood mortality by increasing vaccination rates, come up with clever methods to allocate public goods like the frequency spectrum and that's just the last 3 years.
- styren 5y agoThe title is wrong, there's no such thing as the Nobel Prize for Economics, it's the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2021. Nitpick? Perhaps, but wrong nevertheless.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoWhich, for shortness, we call the Nobel Prize in Economics. When someone says "North Korea", do you inform them that the correct title is "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea"?
- cpach 5y agoAnother option is to call it The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
- serverholic 5y agoHow about we just call it The Nobel fucking Prize and move on with our lives?
- styren 5y agoThe prize wasn't conceived by Alfred Nobel nor endorsed by him. Can I come up with my own computer science award and name it a Nobel Prize as well?
- yboris 5y agoAlex Tabarrok's Marginal Revolution write up on this: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/10/the-credibility-revolution-1.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/10/th...
- nabla9 5y agoPeople familiar with statistics or data science may be familiar with the work of Angrist and Imbens. They developed 2SLS and CACE/LATE. Check out Angrist's book: "Mastering 'Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect" https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9781400852383/mastering-metrics https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9781400852383/master... https://www.masteringmetrics.com/ https://www.masteringmetrics.com/
- gbronner 5y agoSo sad about Alan Krueger.
- Godel_unicode 5y agoFor those not in the know on econ research (like me!) I believe this comment refers to the fact that Alan Krueger was deeply involved in this work, but that the Nobel committee only honors living scientists. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2118030 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2118030
- petters 5y agoJudea Pearl writes about these news: https://twitter.com/yudapearl/status/1447596402670903304?t=XHzJvBgAXE6c8EBZ0Aj6pw&s=19 https://twitter.com/yudapearl/status/1447596402670903304?t=X... Edit: downvotes suggest some context may be needed. Pearl win the Turing award for casual inference but has been critical of the current Nobel recipients' methods.
- bthallplz 5y agoI'm curious to know what he means by that their work > overlook[s] the two Fundamental Laws of causal inference.
- sjg007 5y agoThe two things that have to hold are: 1. The law of Counterfactuals and 2. The Law of Conditional Independence You can find preprints from Pearl online or even some presentations that cover these definitions. His books as well. I don't know how this applies to the work by the economists. I think Gelman at Columbia talks about Pearl and SCMs and the whole thing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Mikeb85 5y agoGotta love it when the prize document itself highlights the pitfalls of the methodology used by the winners... > Despite the enormous increase in labour supply, Card found no negative effects for Miami residents with low levels of education. Wages did not fall and unemployment did not increase relative to the other cities. > while people who immigrated at an earlier time are negatively affected. One explanation for this is that the natives switch to jobs that require good native language skills, and where they do not have to compete with immigrants for jobs. If this isn't terrible methodology I don't know what is. Literally using bad data to say immigration doesn't affect the labour market, then saying it does for same-language jobs. So it obviously does but language is a barrier to entry for some jobs. Literally invalidates the first point.
- shkkmo 5y agoI don't understand how this is bad data? It seems to me that you are asserting a claim "immigration doesn't effect the labor market" that was never made. > Card found no negative effects for Miami residents with low levels of education. Wages did not fall and unemployment did not increase relative to the other cities. Additionally, the claims about specific types of effects on the labour market that you quote were from follow up studies and also don't conflict with the results of the earlier study. Low-income residents on average, had no negative effects but follow up studies split up that low income group and found that one subgroup benefits and another subgroup suffers.
- Mikeb85 5y agoEdit: The line above the first I quoted: > Despite the enormous increase in labour supply, Card found no negative effects for Miami residents with low levels of education. Then a few lines down (my first post), it said there were negative effects for previous immigrants with low levels of education. They made the assertion, then disproved it in the same paragraph, supposedly this is a highlight of the award? It literally says an increase in immigration negatively affects the labour market for previous immigrants/workers who speak the same language. This != no negative effect... The previous conclusion ignores a bunch of other factors.
- originalvichy 5y agoThat birthdate difference sounds like the difference in NHL kids' success that's based on how early in the year you were born. Statistically the earlier born kids get more mass and muscle and get moved to better teams faster.