Another contradiction by a member of the economics profession. It seems to me they care very much. By linking the prize to Alfred Nobel’s name (and to the Nobel institutions), the Riksbank ensured the prize would immediately carry great symbolic prestige. The Nobel brand was already well established internationally, so adopting the name helped the economics prize gain recognition, gravitas, and legitimacy.
I’d love an estimate from you (or anyone) about the marginal effect on the profession’s “legitimacy” (which is what? and how’s it measured?) from having the prize include Nobel’s name vs. not including it.
Really we don’t care.
> I’d love an estimate from you (or anyone) about the marginal effect on the profession’s “legitimacy” (which is what? and how’s it measured?) from having the prize include Nobel’s name vs. not including it.
I don't have an estimate for that, but we have an estimate on how much money the Sverige Riskbank bankers were ready to spend in that effort. Maybe it didn't pan out but some people definitely had a multimillion dollar interest in making that happen. As an economist you must wonder what their incentives could have been …
I've seen this style of argument before and I think it's a non sequitur and total BS. The fact that he may care about feeling his opinion is being misrepresented is totally different from what his original "we don't care" statement referred to.
You’re mixing up quantitative finance and economics.
What do you base this on?
This is a bad model to pick to exemplify physics envy given it’s based on thermodynamic dispersion.
The term “physics envy” broadly applies to all social sciences lacking a mathematical basis. It’s a criticism of using math where it doesn’t belong. That hasn’t really fit (until very recently) with economics. It’s been a classic complaint about quantitative finance’s loftier visions of universality.
Using a model derived from physics is not having physics envy.
> The term “physics envy” broadly applies to all social sciences lacking a mathematical basis
No, physics envy is about thinking you can have the same prediction power as physics using simple mathematical tools just because some branch of physics do (while not understanding physics at the same time, because all of physics definitely doesn't work like that).
> It’s a criticism of using math where it doesn’t belong. That hasn’t really fit (until very recently) with economics
Well, if you consider Ricardo to be recent, maybe…
My point was speak for yourself, the history does not suggest you are correct. Evidence economists do care[1][2][3]. Economics was still a relatively newer niche discipline[4].
[1] https://developingeconomics.org/2024/10/22/the-nobel-illusio...
[2] https://ideas.repec.org/b/pup/pbooks/10841.html
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/nobel-priz...
[4] https://cooperative-individualism.org/parrish-john_rise-of-e...
Since you stand by your statement so strongly, you should have it already, correct?
Who really cares, its the top prize in the field, that is all that matters.
I’d actually argue that the only people who love this piece of trivia are economists, financiers and a particular vein of Reddit.
Source: also an economist