[flagged]
Such a post is definitely not obligatory.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
11–20 of 217 posts
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#12[flagged]
And that's exactly why the title is "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel". Not that it's a "Nobel Prize".
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#13That's a tiny article, but it does contain an interesting passage: "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress" which is the core of the reason the prize was awarded. I find it interesting to see technological progress so tightly coupled to sustained growth and I wonder if the implication is that growth will stop when technological progress stagnates. Is there any proo…
At first glance, "sustained growth" sounds like an oxymoron. Nothing can grow forever, unless the growth asymptotically approaches zero.
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#14"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...
HN discussions are predictable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566804
>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.
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#15Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#16"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...
HN discussions are predictable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566804
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.
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#17Economist here…
An unexpected (to me!) prize but definitely a good one.
What’s notable is that mokyr’s research is very, very accessible to a layman. You can read his books and understand them nearly perfectly without needing substantial technical background. (Of course there’s a huge existing literature in economics and history he’s engaging with which you won’t know, but I’m not an economic historian either so a lot of it is unfamiliar to me too.). Try it! Hopefully you learn something.
Also the committee always releases a good non-technical summary of the laureates work and an even better “more technical” summary. You can start there for an overview.
As for the point which will be raised endlessly here that this is “not a real Nobel” - whatever. No one in the economics profession cares. Alfred Nobel doesn’t have a monopoly on prizes or priority to decide which fields are worth recognizing. It’s our highest prestige prize. Call it what you want.
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#18"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...
HN discussions are predictable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566804
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.
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#19That's a tiny article, but it does contain an interesting passage: "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress" which is the core of the reason the prize was awarded. I find it interesting to see technological progress so tightly coupled to sustained growth and I wonder if the implication is that growth will stop when technological progress stagnates. Is there any proo…
At first glance, "sustained growth" sounds like an oxymoron. Nothing can grow forever, unless the growth asymptotically approaches zero.
This page: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2025/pre... explains in more detail what they mean. It's a pretty clean and effective explanation.
> Technology advances rapidly and affects us all, with new products and production methods replacing old ones in a never-ending cycle. This is the basis for sustained economic growth, which results in a better standard of living, health and quality of life for people around the globe.
> However, this was not always the case. Quite the opposite – stagnation was the norm throughout most of human history. Despite important discoveries now and again, which sometimes led to improved living conditions and higher incomes, growth always eventually levelled off.
...
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#20Sustained growth, like "economic science", is an oxymoron.
There is no science that correlates the use of arbitrary symbols posed as capital. Risk is risk, a primate bias.
Economics is essentially "mathematical politics". We can no more create a science of economics than a science of mythology.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262049658/blunt-instrument/
Downvoting only proves the point: economics is like any primate bias, it enforces status at the cost of the collective or institutional. The US is a sad case for economic "modeling."