Faux Nobel Prize for Economists
Nobel descendant slams Economics prize.. In the week before this year's Nobel laureates are annonunced, the great great nephew of Alfred Nobel has reiterated his criticism of the Nobel Economics Prize, which he says is "a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation"...
Nobel despised people who cared more about profits than society’s well-being, Peter says, reiterating his vehement criticism of the Nobel Economics Prize which he says Alfred Nobel would never have created.
Unlike the Nobel Prizes for Medicine, Chemistry, Physics, Literature and Peace, which were created by Nobel in his 1896 will and first awarded in 1901, the Economics Prize was conceived by Sweden’s central bank in 1968 to mark its tricentenary and first awarded a year later...
The Economics Prize has over the years been criticized as not being a “real” Nobel, and a newspaper article Peter Nobel wrote in 2001 refuelled the debate...
“It’s most often awarded to stock market speculators”, which does not reflect Alfred Nobel’s spirit of improving the human condition, he fumes.
“The Economics Prize has nestled itself in and is awarded as if it were a Nobel Prize. But it’s a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation,” he bristles.
Nassim Taleb is calling on investors to band together and sue the Swedish Central Bank for several of its Nobel Prize for Economics awards, according to Bloomberg.
His reason: the prize gave legitimacy to theories that were at the root of the financial crisis.
Taleb takes specific aim at Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller and William Sharpe. He says that Sharpe's theory "vastly underestimates" risks.
And Taleb is willing to go it alone in his lawsuit against the Swedish Central Bank, "If no one else sues them, I will."
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