Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
"Nobel" for "Economics Science": Neither a Nobel nor a Science
Calling this 'Nobel in Economics' perpetuates the fraud begun in 1969," wrote Christopher L. Simpson in a comment in The New York Times.
"Feeling that the 'science' of economics lacked legitimacy, some Swedish bankers founded this prize and in wholesale commission of fraud named it after Alfred Nobel (who has no connection with economics whatsoever) in order to gain for it the prestige that Nobel in his will, chose to reserve for physics, chemistry, literature, peace, etc.," he wrote.
Mr. Simpson is right about the prize's origins. It was first awarded... in 1969 and funded by a donation from Sweden’s Central Bank... to the Swedish Academy of Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel prizes. The bank’s donation established the economic sciences prize 74 years after the Nobels were founded.
Many also bristle at the idea of calling economics a science, as it is dependent on politics, statistical analyses, and mathematical modeling based on the capricious behavior of people. The hard sciences, say critics, rely on observations of the natural world and on testable theories.
