The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens

The price Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded this Monday to David Card “For his empirical contributions to labor economics” and Joshua Angrist y Guido Imbens “For his methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships.”

“The work of the 2021 Prize winners in economics has revolutionized empirical research in the social sciences and has dramatically improved the ability of the research community to answer questions of great importance to all of us,” the prize’s authorities said. at the end of the awards season.

Canadian Card, which won half the prize, analyzed the labor market effects of minimum wage, immigration and education. Together with the late Alan Krueger, they used a natural experiment to study how raising the minimum wage affects employment. Comparative data for Pennsylvania and New Jersey showed that an increase in wages did not affect the employment rate, contradicting one of the main arguments in favor of an increase in wages..

Regarding its work on migration, the Swedish Academy underlined: “Now we know that incomes of people born in a country can benefit from a new immigrationwhile people who immigrated earlier are at risk of being negatively affected. We also realized that school resources are much more important to the future success of students in the labor market than previously thought. “

Israeli-American Angrist and the American-Dutch Imbens has shown what conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments. The framework developed by them has been widely adopted by researchers working with observational data.

“Card’s studies on fundamental societal issues and the methodological contributions of Angrist and Imbens have shown that natural experiments are a rich source of knowledge. Their research has dramatically improved our ability to answer key causal questions, which has been of great benefit to society, ”said Peter Fredriksson, Chair of the Economics Prize Committee.

Sometimes called the “false Nobel” for having been created by the Bank of Sweden more than 60 years after the other five (medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace), the 2021 economics prize was due to be announced at 11:55 am local (9:55 am GMT) in Stockholm.

With only two women among the 86 winners (the American Elinor Ostrom in 2009 and the French Esther Duflo 10 years later), the economy is the most masculine of the Nobel.

As with all Nobel Prize winners, the list of “usual suspects” was long.

The last 10 winners

– 2020: Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson (United States) for “improving auction theory and inventing new auction formats” for “the benefit of sellers, buyers and taxpayers around the world”.

– 2019: Esther Duflo (France / United States), Abhijit Banerjee (United States) and Michael Kremer (United States) for their work on global poverty reduction.

– 2018: William Nordhaus and Paul Romer (United States) for their models of the impact of economic activity on the climate.

– 2017: Richard H. Thaler (United States) for his studies on the psychological and social mechanisms that influence the decisions of consumers and investors.

– 2016: Oliver Hart (UK / US) and Bengt Holmström (Finland), contract theorists.

– 2015: Angus Deaton (United Kingdom / United States), “for his analysis of consumption, poverty and well-being”.

– 2014: Jean Tirole (France), for his work on “market power and regulation”.

– 2013: Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller (United States), for their studies on financial markets.

– 2012: Lloyd Shapley and Alvin Roth (United States), for their work on how best to balance supply and demand in the market, with examples on organ donation and education.

– 2011: Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims (United States), for their analysis which helped to understand how hazards and public policies influence macroeconomic indicators.

Other winners

The 53rd “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics in Memory of Alfred Nobel” concludes a season in which the committees have defied the predictions of experts and players.

While freedom of the press was a favorite for the price of peace, the Norwegian Nobel committee chose to honor two investigative journalists, the Filipina Maria Ressa and the Russian Dimitri Muratov.

That of literature rewarded the novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, of Tanzanian origin and exiled in the United Kingdom.

In medicine, messenger RNA vaccines against covid-19 have not been awarded, and the laurel went to American researchers David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian (of Lebanese origin) for their work on tactile nerve receptors.

The physics prize was awarded for the first time to two climate experts, the German Klaus Hasselman and the American-Japanese Syukuro Manabe, shared with the Italian theorist Giorgio Parisi.

At the same time, the chemistry prize rewarded the pioneers of a new type of catalyst, German Benjamin List and Scottish American David MacMillan.

(With information from AFP)

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