Why don't they just rename the Nobel economics prize the Ronald Reagan-Milton Friedman prize?

[kurth]

Nobel in economics yet another for University of Chicago
The Associated Press
Monday, October 15, 2007

CHICAGO: One of the world's most influential schools of economics has done it again. The nearly 120-year-old University of Chicago, once the academic home of free-market advocates such as Milton Friedman, can boast of yet another Nobel prize in economics.

With Monday's naming of University of Chicago professor Roger B. Myerson as one of three winners of this year's prize, the school claims ties to 24 Nobel prize winners in economics — more than a third of the 61 individuals so honored since the first Nobel in the field was given in 1969... "Good ideas eventually get recognized, and Chicago has produced more than any other university," said David Boaz, an executive vice president at the Cato Institute, a free-market oriented think tank in Washington, D.C.

Part of the explanation for the school's influence and fame in recent decades is that many of its economists — like Friedman, who won in 1976 — began advocating free-market prescriptions as far back as the mid-20th century, when the notion of unfettered markets was distinctly out of favor in government and academia. So when movements to reduce the role of government in the economy began to take hold in the '70s and '80s, led by politicians like Ronald Reagan, the stature of University of Chicago economists like Friedman soared.

Today, policy makers in fledgling markets from Eastern Europe to China look for guidance to "the Chicago school," a direct reference to the University of Chicago and the hands-off economic policies many of its economists have promoted...

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/15/business/NA-FIN-US-Nobel-Economics-Chicago.php

[tuvor]

1. Ehhh, it's not really a Nobel Prize anyway.

Unlike the physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace prizes, a prize for economics was never requested by Alfred Nobel in his will. The award was established some 70 years after his death by the Bank of Sweden on its 300th anniversary in 1968. The prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences...

(snip)

The prestige of the prize derives in part from its association with the awards created by Alfred Nobel's will, an association which has often been a source of controversy. Among the most vocal critics of the economics prize is the Swedish human rights lawyer Peter Nobel, who is a great-grandnephew of Alfred Nobel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Economics

You can listen to an interview with Peter Nobel from an episode of CBC's The Current from last week: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2007/200710/20071009.html

[rusty quoin]

2. Didn't know that. Thanks.

[lvx35]

5. Good info. Thanks. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. As I noted on another thread, over half the winners have been

Americans, almost all conservative Americans.

No women have ever won, either, unlike the other prizes.

[TimBean]

4. What's wrong with the winner?

Please explain

[Mr Rabble]

6. Pretty simple.

What the winner advocates, as do all of "the Chicago school" people is absolutely NOT "free market" anything. They specifically advocate for heavy government intervention in the markets, but rather than for the good of people, it is done for the good of the rich and powerful; the corporations.

You need only look at what has been done in the US over the last 30 years to see this in action. Our economy is largely Pentagon based. It is a system whereby the taxpayer pays all of the research and development costs, and once a technology becomes viable, it is turned over to private corporations for profit.

Aerospace, Internet, Computers, etc....

So, the problem with the "free market" ideologues is that they are in no way interested in the "free market", unless that means free of risk for them, and free to profit from state intervention and investment.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. Some Keynesians Or Neo-Keynesians Have Won

Paul Samuelson and Joseph Stiglitz...

I suspect , on most college campuses, economics professor agree about a lot more than they disagree upon...

Economics like all the social sciences is concerned with observing human behavior and human behavior is fairly predictable...