The Nobel Effin Prize in Economics

It's a very annoying tick. I've actually attended a Nobel Prize ceremony (not the dinner, which is much nicer), and sure enough, recipients of the Economics prize are treated exactly the same as everyone else.

I never realized Alfred Nobel had so many defenders fighting the good fight against those who dare besmirch his original intentions.

This is one of the irritating quirks of Nassim Taleb. He felt obliged to point out this "distinction" multiple times in one of his books.

which just rolls off the tongue.

(That's Bank Of Sweden Prize In Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel.)

You can even call it the Bospiesman Trophy.

And count me in with the skeptics who don't believe economics has generated enough worthwhile research for a whole prize, and that many of the economics Nobels seem to have been given for relatively trivial modifications to models.

Although given the committee's choice between scraping the bottom of the Chicago School barrel and branching out into neighboring social sciences, I'm glad they're choosing the latter.

This is what I found on the web
Symposium on Poverty and Development
Conference Hall Alankar Bhawan, Boring Road,Patna
National HRD Network,Patna Chapter
Vice President Ratnakar Mishra presiding.
www.nationalhrd.org
ratanakar.mishra@gmail.com
Quotation from an introduction and reply by Manu Shanker Mishra.
"In any pedagogy there is suppression.The economics of higher education of a formal system in an overall model of primary,secondary and higher education takes note of both formal and informal education in view of the privileged and under privileged sections of the society.With an intuitive knowledge of the market pulse the analyzer can do regular suppression without ignoring the business cycle caused by zeta function of a double sheeted plane and the first, second or third wave.The shock fronts effect the point of vetification in the social distribution of knowledge.In a system of awarding for a reward in terms of gain of knowledge in the 0 knowledge model there is no future shock or tremor in the present if no institution of higher education is treated as the sole point of reference with high frequency.The informal economy is purposefully ignored and formal education is of a degree even with scholarships,grants and loans.Acceptance is a wish of the priveleged only while for the underprivileged it is what they must accept.Between invention and theory there interval of creative ability and false notions.Comparitive advantages underlying interchange of ideas are repressed as industry and trade insist that there interest must be first attended to.An assymetric technology is not necessarily anti-symmetric but effects priorities.Experiences in Bihar or India do not differ from those of UNESCO and world line has existence only in Editorial Board of New York Times and Discovery Channels."
Ratnakar Mishra summed up proceedings, thanked the Team which gave the power point presentation and thanked the Lady Social Activist for sharing her experiences with all.
I can only add from my own understanding of Methodological Frame of the Field and LL.B (google for Manu (Shanker ))that there can be no resolution in the absence of the deontic net and there can be no mechanical equilibrium in a market economy. Sadly both are missing in the works of this Nobel Prize for Economics Winners 2009

Kevin Drum complains about people who insist on reminding us that there is no Nobel Prize in economics, only a cleverly-named "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel", for which the profession and the Bank of Sweden bought off the Nobel foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to administer, the first one having been handed out only in 1969.

Mr Drum objects that, after all, the prize is "awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences, just like the Physics and Chemistry prizes", that the Nobel Foundation "bought into" to the idea, and "it's presented on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death at the same awards ceremony as all the others", showing a picture of Paul Krugman "at the awards ceremony last year right alongside all the "real" winners." This is wrong or misleading on all counts:

1. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards several other extremely prestigious, big-money, non-Nobel prizes: for example, the Crafoord Prize in Astronomy and Mathematics, Biosciences, Geosciences or Polyarthritis Research; the Rolf Schock Prizes in Logic and Philosophy, and in Mathematics; and the Gregori Aminoff Prize in Crystallography.

2. To "buy into" means to believe in sufficiently that you put your cash down for a share in. The Nobel Foundation did not "buy into", it was bought off, a very different thing.

3. In the photo, Krugman is not alongside "all the 'real' winners". The Nobel Peace Prize, which, unlike the economics prize, is a real Nobel Prize, is awarded at a separate ceremony in Oslo.

Finally, Mr Drum misses the entire point of the objection:

The real Nobel Prizes were endowed by an individual who could not win any of them himself, from his own personal fortune, the fruit of invention based in the hard sciences. Nobel thought the frightening power of his inventions would lead to peace, but in fact they led to more frightening war; they contributed not to loftier idealism, but to more cynicism. Not wanting to be remembered as "The Merchant of Death", Nobel endowed the prizes to honour the contributions that are of the greatest benefit to mankind, from those self-same fields: the hard sciences; the cause of peace; and the humanities, as exemplified by literature. The Nobel Prizes accumulated their prestige from the worthiness of the contributions they acknowledged, and from the worthiness of the ideals for which they were endowed. They exemplify honour, and have earned our appreciation.

On the other hand The "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" was a prize concocted by the Bank of Sweden and the economics profession to commemorate and honour nothing but themselves; decisively lobbied for by specific individuals with connections to the Bank and the Academy who knew they would eventually win it themselves; and paid for not from any hard-won personal fortune, but from the deep public coffers of the Bank of Sweden. In conception, it is the discipline's equivalent of a giant upper management bonus package: we have been given the responsibility to manage other people's money, so let's give it to ourselves because boy do we deserve it. The big pile of cash was needed not only for the prizes, but more importantly— and so unlike the case for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and the cause of peace— to buy from the Nobel Foundation the prestige that the profession was never able to get through the actual products of its own practice. While the scientific merits of the individual prize-winners are debatable, the prize itself is indeed monumentally worthy of derision and scorn.

For background, see r