An unexpected (to me!) prize but definitely a good one.
What’s notable is that mokyr’s research is very, very accessible to a layman. You can read his books and understand them nearly perfectly without needing substantial technical background. (Of course there’s a huge existing literature in economics and history he’s engaging with which you won’t know, but I’m not an economic historian either so a lot of it is unfamiliar to me too.). Try it! Hopefully you learn something.
Also the committee always releases a good non-technical summary of the laureates work and an even better “more technical” summary. You can start there for an overview.
As for the point which will be raised endlessly here that this is “not a real Nobel” - whatever. No one in the economics profession cares. Alfred Nobel doesn’t have a monopoly on prizes or priority to decide which fields are worth recognizing. It’s our highest prestige prize. Call it what you want.
I'm not familiar with the two others but Aghion really isn't a surprise given the track record the Nobel committee for the econ prize has of following hype rather than anything else.
(I've been very critical of Aghion's work for the past few years since I've been exposed to his work over that period, but it always appeared to me as a potential laureate given the resonance of his work)
Agreed! I am a big fan of Robert Allen's books on the industrial revolution as a counterpoint to Mokyr. (The two are of course are friends with each other as well).
if you run into anyone who is serious about the "fake Nobel" complaint, just ask them why they have such a high opinion of taking money from an arms dealer, and such a low opinion of taking money from a public institution in one of the Nordic welfare states.
Mokyr’s northwestern website has links to a lot of his papers.
An extremely crude selection rule:
Anything published in the American economic review, quarterly journal of economics, journal of political economy has the profession’s “highest stamp of approval”. It’s really hard to publish anything there. (There are two journals im not listing in that “top” category but he has no papers there on his website.). On aghion or howitts websites, look for the above journals but also econometrica and the review of economic studies. Those are the “top five” in the field.
There are surely papers in good history and Econ history journals on mokyr’s website but I don’t know the journals!
Standards for any chapter in a “handbook of X economics” or “handbook of the economics of X” are high - those should be good surveys.
Similarly a paper in the “annual review of economics”
Also mokyr has a bunch of work on Amazon. “The lever of riches” is a classic. “A culture of growth” is well regarded.
Finally he has a forthcoming book called “two paths to prosperity” with two other distinguished guys - one Econ historian (greif) and one political economy guy (tabellini). It’s coming out in about three weeks. Good timing, Princeton U Press!
Aghion and howitt have a growth textbook at the advanced undergrad level called “the economics of growth.”
They have a much more advanced work called “endogenous growth theory” which is for specialists (or at least anyone with first year PhD macro)
Aghion has a book called “the power of creative destruction.”
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.
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].
I’d love an estimate from you (or anyone) about the marginal effect on the profession’s “care” (which is what? and how’s it measured?) from having the prize include Nobel’s name vs. not including it.
Since you stand by your statement so strongly, you should have it already, correct?
You care so little you spent time to claim you don't care twice in a row.
> 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 …
> You care so little you spent time to claim you don't care twice in a row.
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.
Are you sure though? I don’t have an opinion on this specific case, but I have been in situations where someone claims to have no interest at all in a topic and then doesn’t stop talking about it.
Excuse me? Quant finance doesn't claim to be devising grand theories about how the world operates (is more akin to engineering). And when it does, any delineation from economics is moot.
What's quintessential quant finance? Black-Scholes and no-arbitrage pricing. Don't you agree it's much more of a tool than a theory of how the world works.
> What's quintessential quant finance? Black-Scholes and no-arbitrage pricing
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.
> This is a bad model to pick to exemplify physics envy given it’s based on thermodynamic dispersion.
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…
I mean, i hear people call the Turing prize the "nobel" of computer science, and the fields medal the nobel of math. Sports that arent in the olympics usually have some competition people refer to as the "olympics" of that sport.
Who really cares, its the top prize in the field, that is all that matters.
If you read the review, you will see the author notes that issue pretty often and specifically discusses ways in which the oldest book he reviews (from 2014) both is and isn’t useful.
Why stand up and not use your legs at all?? People have rowed it.
This is a weird stunt that won’t prove anything. If he (magically) made it in a week people would still fly.
What’s the point? Don’t say “raising awareness”. Whose mind does the exercise have a chance of changing about what question? What behavioral change will that changed mind cause?
Both Harris and Martine's anecdotes provide little evidence about AI being linked to their hiring issues.
The author is just conjecturing that AI has had an impact on their job markets, when both are primarily targeting government and government adjacent roles when state and federal governments are in the process of slashing funding.
The funniest thing about the reaction from all of his neighbors is that none of them are willing to do the one thing that really would annoy Zuckerberg and probably make him move: build multi story, multi tenant housing (i.e., small apartment buildings!) on plots he doesn’t already own.
Go to the city and ask for permission to replace two lots with five story apartment buildings with a view into his backyard. He’ll sue immediately and if he can’t stop it he’ll move.
No doubt it’s impossible to even get permission to do so (which is a separate problem!), but if those whiners really want revenge on the guy who they think “ruined their neighborhood” there’s one option they aren’t pursuing.
Do you think a normal person can "just" build multi story, multi tenant housing on a whim? For a non-multimillionaire, that'd at least be the entire life savings of families
Entirely useless recommendations and very dubious empirical claims here. Let’s take them one at a time….
- “The climate crisis and socio-ecological issues are broadly absent from economic curricula.”
-> I don’t believe that for a second. Externalities are taught in every Econ 101 class I’ve ever heard of.
“75% of universities do not teach any ecological economics”
-> as a whole class maybe not but that doesn’t mean the material doesn’t get covered.
“ instead, when issues of ecological sustainability are taught, environmental damage is considered as something that needs to be priced into market mechanisms.”
-> which is a completely normal, standard idea among economists for good reason!
“Economics education does not address historical and contemporary power imbalances”
-> that’s not our job? Wtf - that’s not part of economics at all. Does it get covered in statistics? In history? I don’t know who’s responsible but it’s not us.
“55% of universities do not provide meaningful teaching on questions of historical slavery, colonialism, or neocolonialism at all. History and ethics are absent from these discussions.”
-> economics departments are not being held responsible for this supposed omissions but I really doubt this supposed fact is true. Does an American history class count or not ? It’s just not possible that slavery is not taught.
“Mainstream neoclassical economics dominates the economic theories taught.”
-> also a good sign as that’s the standard. We don’t teach Marxist thought anymore. That’s progress.
“Of the 480 theory modules we graded, 88.3% of them included mainstream neoclassical economic thinking focusing on rational, self-interested individuals.”
-> Show me any alternative that’s credible. Also: behavioral methods are widely taught. We are plenty criticism of our own models. That’s also Econ 101 material.
“They are almost entirely taught through quantitative technical skills.”
->. Good. Also: as opposed to…? What exactly?
“Economics is taught in isolation from other social sciences. The discipline of economics should be embedded within the social sciences, and students should be encouraged to learn across other disciplines such as politics, sociology, geography, and history, but for the most part, it remains siloed”
-> that’s true of what happens in every other department too. Leave it up to universities to set distribution requirements.
“There are two programmes that are critical, climate-conscious, and provide an economics education fit for the 21st century. SOAS and the University of Greenwich introduce students to a range of intellectual and methodological perspectives within the economics discipline. They put a learning focus on climate, power, and inequality throughout the course.”
Not surprising at all to hear that Matt Stoller got the economics of an antitrust issue wrong. I appreciate the attention he brings to the topic and his diligence in digging up stories but his own analysis is often just totally wrong. I don’t think he’s worth taking seriously as an analyst. Maybe as a reporter at best.
I would love to see more of their game theory example.
Having experience teaching the subject myself, what I saw on that page is about the first five minutes of the first class of the semester at best. The devil will very much be in the other 99% of what you do.
Barro also has an old undergrad macro text which is good
The gap between undergrad macro and professional macro is extremely large. That shouldn’t dissuade you it’s just a note.