Responding to the announcement that Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom have won the Nobel prize in economics, blogger Matt Yglesias raises the perennial question: what Nobel prize in economics?

the Sveriges Riksbank itself deserves some kind of prize for ability to get people to call its economics prize "the Nobel Prize." Real Nobel Prizes are prizes awarded according to the endowment that Alfred Nobel set up. There are, of course, lots of other prizes in the world set up by other people. One such prize is this economics prize that the Swedish Central Bank decided to give out. But only the Swedish Central Bank prize has succeeded in convincing people that it should be referred to as a "Nobel Prize" despite having no connection to Alfred Nobel or his prizes. Impressive work and yet another example of the impressively high-performing public sector institutions that make the Swedish social model work.

Why not call it the Sveriges Riksbank Prize? Should there be a different name for the "Nobel" economics prize?

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Heather Horn