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 ________________________________________________