[flagged]
[dead]
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
21–30 of 217 posts
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 f…
Stagnation is environmentally sustainable. Constant creation-destruction cycles will ultimately deplete the environment
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#23That'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…
There is two contributors to growth: increase in population, and productivity gains. If tech adoption slows down and population slows down, we go back to the historical norm of no economic growth.
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN discussions are predictable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566804
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.
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#25Economist 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 lo…
Agreed! I am a big fan of Robert Allen's books on the industrial revolution as a counterpoint to Mokyr. (The two are of course are friends with each other as well).
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Sci…
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...
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Sci…
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.
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 a…
[deleted]
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN discussions are predictable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566804
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…
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.
Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Sci…
" 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.