Let it be resolved
That nobody cares that the Bank of Sweden Prize in the Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is not a "proper" Nobel prize.
That the Arabs are also Semites and nobody cares.
I don't expect this will be resolved of course - bores and Mike Gigglers have been arguing about this one for the last millennium. Which ended on January 1, 2001, of course and nobody cares.
But people do care enormously that the Bank of Sweden Prize in the Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is not a "proper" Nobel prize. Economics tend to get very cross when you remind them of it...
ReplyDeleteUnless they're economists who feel like they should have won it and got passed over. They're quite keen on pointing out that it's only a pseudo-Nobel.
ReplyDeleteI don't think "economics" get cross when you remind them of it, so much as annoyed that whenever the "Nobel Prize" in economics is discussed, some smart mark, usually with an axe to grind against economics in general is there to point out that, don't you know, it isn't actually a "Nobel Prize" but merely a Bank of Sweden prize in memory of Alfred Nobel, as if this useless fact changes or impacts the discussion in any productive way.
ReplyDeleteAlso in my experience, with the exception of Dean Baker, this little factoid ends up being the limit of anything useful the provider is able to contribute to any economics related discussion.
The Nobel family care. I can't say I care about any of the Nobel prizes for anything.
ReplyDeleteI'll bite:
ReplyDeleteReal Nobel Prizes: established in 1895. Fake Nobel in economics: established in 1969.
Real Nobel Prizes: awarded for work in science, literature or peace. Embarrassing winners include forgotten novelists, William Golding, Henry Kissinger, and Kofi Annan.
Fake Nobel in economics: typically awarded for prolonged service at the University of Chicago. Many winners are embarrassing, but Ed Prescott tops the list.
The date (1969) the prize was established is interesting. If Bretton Woods had collapsed a couple of years earlier, perhaps this pretentious exercise in self-congratulation would never have been born.