The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for the year 2022 has been given to Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig “for research on banks and financial crises.”
The winners were announced at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly Rs 7.5 crore).
In 2021, half of the award went to David Card from the University of California, Berkeley for his research on how education, immigration and minimum wage affect the labour market. The other half of the prize went to Joshua Angrist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Guido Imbens from Stanford University for their theory on how to study issues that don’t fit traditional scientific methods.
Unlike physics, chemistry, literature and peace prizes, the economics award wasn’t established in the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel. The Swedish central bank started giving this award in his memory in 1969. The prize in economic sciences, however, is awarded on the same principles as the Nobel Prizes that have been awarded since 1901.
Nobel In Economic Sciences
Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank) established the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1968. The prize money is based on a donation received by the Nobel Foundation in 1968 from Sveriges Riksbank.
The first Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen in 1969. As of the awarding of the 2021 prize, 53 Prizes in Economic Sciences have been given to 89 individuals.
How Winners Are Selected For Nobel Prize In Economic Sciences
As the first step towards selecting the economics prize winner, or winners, the Economic Sciences Prize Committee sends confidential forms to persons they deem competent and qualified to nominate a winner, according to the Nobel Prize website.
No economist can nominate himself or herself for the prize.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has set criteria for people who reserve the right to submit proposals for the award of the prize.
They are Swedish and foreign members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; members of the prize committee; past winners of the economics prize; “permanent professors in relevant subjects” at different universities and colleges in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland.
The academy can also invite proposals from persons holding “corresponding chairs in at least six universities or colleges, selected for the relevant year by the Academy of Sciences with a view to ensuring the appropriate distribution between different countries and their seats of learning”, and other scientists whom the academy may deem fit.
The prize committee, which comprises five members but also includes adjunct members with the same voting rights, screens the nominations and selects the final candidates.
The academy then selects the winners from among the candidates recommended by the committee.