This year’s Nobel prizes prompt soul-searching among economists
The rise of randomised controlled trials looks to some like a retreat from the biggest questions
NOBEL PRIZES are usually given in recognition of ideas that are already more or less guaranteed a legacy. But occasionally they prompt as much debate as admiration. This year’s economics award, given to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, was unusual both for the recency of the contributions it recognised and the relative youth of the recipients. (For a review of “Good Economics for Hard Times”, by Mr Banerjee and Ms Duflo, see Books and arts section.) Intentionally or not, it has inflamed arguments about the direction of the profession.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Works in progress”
Finance & economics
November 23rd 2019- Big Tech takes aim at the low-profit retail-banking industry
- Pope Francis promised to clean up the Vatican’s murky finances
- Excess Asian savings are weighing on global interest rates
- How machine learning is revolutionising market intelligence
- Firms that analyse climate risks are the latest hot property
- What next for Europe’s banking union?
- Why currency traders are serene even as Western politics gets messy
- This year’s Nobel prizes prompt soul-searching among economists
From the November 23rd 2019 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the edition
Want to be a good explorer? Study economics
The battle to reduce risk has shaped centuries of ventures
Jane Street is chucked out of India. Other firms should be nervous
Around the world, marketmakers now face extra scrutiny
Japan has been hit by investing fever
Will old folk catch the bug?
Don’t invest through the rearview mirror
Markets are supposed to look forward; plenty of investors look back instead
Trump’s trade deals try a creative way to hobble China
To appease the world’s biggest market, countries must anger the world’s biggest trader
The great dealmaker is conspicuously short of trade deals
Donald Trump issues threats—and grants deadline extensions