Herbert A. Simon, 1916-2001

The hundredth anniversary of the creation of the Nobel Prizes provides an excellent opportunity for some reflection. Alfred Nobel's goals, as specified in his will and testament ([1][1]), were obvious: He wished to reward those who make major scientific or social contributions to the well-being of humanity as a whole, and the five prizes he stipulated in his will reflect a certain balance between science (physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine) and society (literature and peace). A sixth Nobel Prize, officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Bank of Sweden. There has been debate, even among eminent economists, whether a prize in economics really fits in with Nobel's own views ([2][2], [3][3]). It is fascinating to speculate what prizes Nobel would have created had he been writing his will today. For the domain of “science,” his philosophy still leads to physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine, although possibly with an emphasis on new aspects (biotechnology) or, the addition of new disciplines such as computer science. For the domain of “society,” it is our view that modern topics such as environmental management and social development—or to widen the definition, sustainability—could well supplement literature and peace as subjects befitting Nobel's views. What could be the nature of a Nobel Prize for Sustainability? One option would be to add another prize in addition to that for economics. Or the prize for economics could be transformed into a Nobel Prize for Sustainability, because the three mainstays of the concept of sustainability are the environment, economics, and social development. A variation of this idea would be to award alternating prizes for economics, the environment, and social development. The first option, adding a new prize, seems least likely to be realized. When the Nobel Foundation Board created the prize for economics, it decided to accept no further prizes ([3][3]). Thus, transforming the prize for economics is a more realistic option, all the more so because economists already questioned in the early 1980s whether enough outstanding economists could be found for an annual prize ([3][3]). Who could be eligible for a sustainability prize? Two categories of people come to mind. The prize could be awarded to persons who have made major scientific contributions to the field of sustainability research (including environmental science, economics, and social development). This would not seem to be the most obvious choice, however, because together with the potential paucity of eligible economists, environmental science lacks the necessary international status as a discipline. Furthermore, environmental researchers are already eligible for the physics and chemistry prizes. An alternative, which we favor, would be to award the prize, in the manner of the Nobel Peace Prize, to persons, institutions, or projects that have made great contributions to the promotion of sustainability in society; for instance, in terms of environmental protection. These could include candidates such as Brundtland, Greenpeace, or the Club of Rome. Although other types of prizes are already being awarded to people who have distinguished themselves in various aspects of sustainability such as environmental protection, these prizes are not nearly so prestigious as a Nobel Prize. Creation of a Nobel Prize for Sustainability would provide a high political and media profile for the discipline annually, and thus a powerful impetus for humankind. 1. [↵][4]Norwegian Nobel Committee, Alfred Nobel, Biography \[online\] (2001). Available at [http://www.nobel.no/eng\_com\_will1.html][5]. 2. [↵][6]1. R. A. Wirtz , Region 3((no. 13)), 7 (1999)Available at . [OpenUrl][7] 3. [↵][8]1. B. Lemmel , The Nobel Foundation: A Century of Growth and Change [online], V. Kayfetz, transl., The Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden, June 2000 [updated 17 April 2001]. Available at . Nobel Laureate Douglass North (1993) admitted that the supply of serious candidates might have become exhausted after the first 15 years when he said, “There is some question whether [the Academy] ought to be giving [the Prize] out every year…. I don't think there are any big, outstanding individuals left” (2). [1]: #ref-1 [2]: #ref-2 [3]: #ref-3 [4]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [5]: http://www.nobel.no/eng_com_will1.html [6]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text [7]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DRegion%26rft.volume%253D3%26rft.issue%253D%2528no.%2B13%2529%26rft.spage%253D7%26rft.atitle%253DREGION%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [8]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3 in text

Editorial

The Matthew effect has become a standard concept in science studies and beyond to describe processes of cumulative advantage. Despite its wide success, a rigorous quantitative analysis for Merton’s original case for Matthew effects—the Nobel Prize—is still missing. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the causal effect of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (hereafter the Nobel Prize in Economics). Furthermore, we test another of Merton’s ideas: successful papers can draw attention to cited references, leading to a serial diffusion of ideas. Based on the complete Web of Science 1900–2011, we estimate the causal effects of Nobel Prizes compared to a synthetic control group which we constructed by combining different matching techniques. We find clear evidence for a Matthew effect upon citation impacts, especially for papers published within 5 years before the award. Further, scholars from the focal field of the award are particularly receptive to the award signal. In contrast to that, we find no evidence that the Nobel Prize causes a serial diffusion of ideas. Papers cited by future Nobel laureates do not gain in citation impact after the award.

To explore the relation between early career performance or recognition and receiving the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, we compare winners of the John Bates Clark Medal, the most prestigious early career recognition for economists, with other successful scholars. The initial comparison combines JBCM winners with scholars published in leading economics journals, controlling for educational background (institution conferring the Ph.D.) and publication and citation success. We then narrow the comparison group down to those given relatively early recognition (based on age category) in the form of other major awards. Lastly, we compare the JBCM awardees with synthetic counterfactuals that best resemble their pre-award academic career performance. All three analyses provide strong support for the notion that winning the JBCM is related to receiving the Nobel Prize, the award of which is also correlated with early career performance success as measured by number of publications and citations.

The Nobel Prize in Economics has given recognition to Allais’ work regarding the allocation of scarce resources. It does not refer explicitly to the financial aspect of this work. The latter cannot, however, be dissociated from it. Allais is in fact convinced that humanities and social sciences, as well as physics, need a unitarian theory regarding human behavior. So, the varied areas that he deals with point towards to same global conception. This concern for synthesis meets, under an original structure, with the study of real phenomena and monetary phenomena linked to the research for conditions of a maximum efficiency of the economy.

Nobel begets Nobel in economics

Chinese economists produce large and increasingly high-quality research output, yet they have not been considered for the Nobel Prize in Economics. Prevailing explanations, cultural bias or insufficient theoretical depth, rely on general assumptions. We integrate Bourdieu’s field theory and Merton’s normative structure of science to operationalize three Nobel-alignment dimensions: Nobel Query (NQ), Nobel Context (NC), and Nobel Time (NT). Using textual and metadata evidence from 2,604 articles in the Economic Research Journal (2000–2019), top in China and representative of the trend, we analyze the question types, levels of analysis, and timeline. Results show that applied “how” questions and domestically bounded contexts (firm/industry/national) dominate in those empirical studies. Despite strong empirical sophistication, Nobel-style inquiries are concentrated in a small set of subfields—especially econometrics, institutional economics, and financial economics. The timeline suggests a gradual convergence towards the Nobel Prize criteria since 2013. These patterns suggest that under-recognition reflects not only external gatekeeping but also internal research orientations that shape symbolic visibility. The NQ–NC–NT framework clarifies where convergence is occurring and identifies levers for translating policy relevance into generalizable contributions and for building international scholarly capital, with implications for journal strategy, collaboration networks, and training that privileges abstraction.

Gender bias and Ida Noddack.

Like nature itself, modern economic life is driven by relentless competition and unbridled selfishness. Or is it? Drawing on converging evidence from neuroscience, social science, biology, law, and philosophy, Moral Markets makes the case that modern market exchange works only because most people, most of the time, act virtuously. Competition and greed are certainly part of economics, but Moral Markets shows how the rules of market exchange have evolved to promote moral behavior and how exchange itself may make us more virtuous. Examining the biological basis of economic morality, tracing the connections between morality and markets, and exploring the profound implications of both, Moral Markets provides a surprising and fundamentally new view of economics--one that also reconnects the field to Adam Smith's position that morality has a biological basis. Moral Markets, the result of an extensive collaboration between leading social and natural scientists, includes contributions by neuroeconomist Paul Zak; economists Robert H. Frank, Herbert Gintis, Vernon Smith (winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics), and Bart Wilson; law professors Oliver Goodenough, Erin O'Hara, and Lynn Stout; philosophers William Casebeer and Robert Solomon; primatologists Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal; biologists Carl Bergstrom, Ben Kerr, and Peter Richerson; anthropologists Robert Boyd and Michael Lachmann; political scientists Elinor Ostrom and David Schwab; management professor Rakesh Khurana; computational science and informatics doctoral candidate Erik Kimbrough; and business writer Charles Handy.

The Nobel Prize in Economics celebrates decades of research in specific fields that have helped to improve the fundamental understanding of the subject and in many cases led to applications for attaining superior conditions of life. Since many parallel ideas emerge during the course of research, the relevance and criticality of these in addressing core concerns of the human being and the nature gets prominence for the award of the greatest accolade. Understanding sources of financial crisis and policies to lessen its impacts is a natural candidate for Nobel Prize, as has been the case for the award in 2022.

The paper presents the Chicago School economist Theodore Schultz's contributions to economic theory. Schultz is the only agricultural economist to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. The first part briefly describes the life of Theodore Schultz. The second part deals with his works in the economics of agriculture. The third part discusses his book The Economic Value of Education (Schultz, 1963). The fourth part analyses his work Investing in People (Schultz, 1981). The fifth part explores the book The Economics of Being Poor (Schultz, 1993). The sixth part outlines the book Origin of Increasing Returns (Schultz, 1993). The seventh part discusses his Nobel Prize lecture.

Herbert Alexander Simon was archived Turning Award in 1995 and Nobel prize in economics in 1978 defined learning as any process by which a system improves performance from experience [2].

Inter-American Development Bank* Professor Bilkey's paper on the use of psychological analytical methods in economics warrants taking a look at the relationship between economics and psychology, and perhaps also at the relationship between economics and sociology and the social sciences in general. Within the last three decades, economics has incorporated mathematical methods into its methodology creating a new branch within the discipline known as econometrics. The award of the first Nobel Prize in economics in 1969 to two econometricians appears to pay tribute to this innovation in eco? nomic methodology, recognizing it as an important scientific achievement making economics more useful to human society. If economics can also incorporate psychological methods to achieve a similar end, creating a new branch within the discipline that could perhaps become known, to coin a term, as econopsychology, this could further increase its usefulness. From this vantage point, any effort to effect a methodological innovation in economics merits the most serious consideration and enthusiastic encouragement. I hold that economics can only gain from a closer relationship with the other social sciences, because this will make it possible for the economic discipline to represent natural events and occurrences contributing to economic and social change more realistically. To quote R?ssel L. Ackoff: must stop acting as though nature were organized into disciplines in the same way that universities are. Real life is a fusion of elements of all disciplines and this appears to call for a closer relationship among the social sciences and for giving them a larger role within economics. We may ask what is the present relationship between economics, psy? chology and sociology, and find that, due to increased specialization, economics, psychology, and sociology have grown further apart, rather than closer together, since the turn of the century. Their methodologies remain essentially incompatible, because economics is largely quantitative, while psychology is largely qualitative. Economics is rigorous in its de? ductions. Social theory, on the other hand, is largely devoid of normative assumptions. It assumes that the more two people are alike, the more they will behave alike. Social theory is largely inductive. Psychology is

Decision Economics, In Commemoration of the Birth Centennial of Herbert A. Simon 1916-2016 (Nobel Prize in Economics 1978)

In 2022, the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded jointly to Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig, for their research on the financial system that shed light on the reasons for, and the consequences of, bank panics. Diamond and Dybvig showed that the banking system provides socially useful services through maturity transformation and delegated monitoring, and they also pointed out that maturity transformation made the banking system fundamentally vulnerable, which, if left unregulated, may experience bank panics. Bernanke demonstrated the macroeconomic significance of the banking system and analysed the negative macroeconomic impact of bank panics. Their research helped lay the foundations of a regulatory environment that fosters the efficient functioning of the financial system without bank panics.