Hi Doug,
Before I give this out to my intro macro students, did you ever get
confirmation, or more info, about these questions?
Thanks. Hope you are well.
Blair
> Each year about this time there is a discussion on the "lists" about
>who won the "nobel" prize in econ., altho this year the topic hasn't come
>up yet on PEN-L. It is also the case that almost ever fall, we have a
>discussion about the origin of the Econ prize. This year, I posted the msg
>below to FEMECON-L when the topic first came up.
>
> I have now received a request to print something about the origin of the
>Econ prize in the IAFFE newsletter. Before I send something off to "print"
>I want to double check some issues.
>
>1) does someone know the source for the quote describing the prize that is
> included below. I took it from an part of the PEN-L discussion in 1993.
>
>2) does anyone know a source to document that A. Nobel did not consider
> Econ. a science. I have heard and read it many times, but I would like
> a more solid cite.
>
>3) when were the original Nobel prizes created?
>
>4) any other background that someone thinks is important.
>
>
>I am hoping Trond is still lurking and can help out on this. Trond??
>
>_____________________________
>Every Fall I get to send out the same msg because there are always new members
>of the list.
>
>The is NO Nobel prize in economics. When Alfred Nobel set up his prizes to
>reward scientific excellence he SPECIFICALLY declined to create a prize for
>economics because he believed "economics is not a science, it is an ideology."
>He endowed the Nobel prizes with part of the fortune he had acquired from his
>invention of dynamite. The prizes were meant to assuage part of the guilt he
>felt the the destructive uses to which his invention had been put, especially
>as weapons of war.
>
>The "Nobel prize in economics" as the media, in its ignorance calls it was
>created by, and funded by the Bank of Sweden:
>
>"The Bank of Sweden, at its tercentanary in 1968, instituted the Bank of
>Sweden Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel, pledging an
>annual amount equal to one of the regular Nobel Prizes. The winner of the
>Prize...is to be chosen each year by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences."
>
>Notice1: it is a prize in Memory of Alfred Nobel, not a Nobel prize. For the
>first few years, the Nobel committee would issue a statement trying to
>clarify that the two are completely different things. But the media refused
>to change the way the reported the prize, so the Committee gave up.
>
>Notice2: No nobel prize in physics, chemistry, biology, etc. has ever been
>given to someone whose work was later shown to be simply wrong. However, this
>has occurred several times in economics, with the most famous case being the
>prize to Milton Friedman for the theory of monetarism, i.e. only money causes
>inflation and money always causes inflation, which was shown to be
>wrong in the 1980s
>
>The Bank of Sweden prize in economics is simply a stamp of ideological
>approval for particular economic theories that serve the interests of the
>elite in capitalist societies. Thus, it is not likely we will ever see
>this prize given to anyone who is engaged in feminist economics!!
>
>Doug Orr
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
________________________________________________
Blair Sandler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"When I give food to the poor,
they call me a saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food,
they call me a communist."
-- Dom Helder Camara
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