Nobel Prize in Economics 2021

Editor1 Oct 29 2021 Current Affairs

The 2021 Nobel Prize for economic science has been awarded in one half to Canadian-born David Card and the other half jointly to Israeli-American Joshua D Angrist and Dutch-American Guido W Imbens.

David Card is a Canadian labour economist and Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.  He has been awarded the 2021 prize “for his empirical contributions to labour economics."

Using natural experiments, David Card has analysed the labour market effects of minimum wages, immigration and education.

His studies from the early 1990s challenged conventional wisdom, leading to new analyses and additional insights. The results showed, among other things, that increasing the minimum wage does not necessarily lead to fewer jobs.-

Meanwhile, Joshua D Angrist and Guido W Imbens got the prize “for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships."

In the mid-1990s, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens demonstrated how precise conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments.

The researchers were honoured for providing us "with new insights about the labour market" and showing "what conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments", the Nobel committee said in a statement.

The prize winners share a sum of 10 million Swedish crowns or $1.14 million.

The prize in economics, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, is the last of this year's list of Nobels.

Nobel prizes for excellence in various arts of humanity have been being awarded since 1,901. The prizes, for achievements in science, literature and peace, were created through a bequest included in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel.

Unlike the other Nobel prizes, the economics award wasn’t established in the will of Alfred Nobel but by the Swedish central bank in his memory in 1968, with the first winner selected a year later. It is the last prize announced each year.

In 2019, colleagues and married couple Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee received the Nobel prize in economic sciences. They shared the award with colleague Michael Kremer.

The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters have faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder.

The Nobel Prize for literature was given to UK-based Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, who was recognised for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee."

The prize for physiology or medicine went to Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries into how the human body perceives temperature and touch.

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