Blog 130 – Nobel Prize Economics Introduction
“This research could reduce global poverty” claimed Jakob Svensson, member of the Prize Committee as the Nobel Prize in Economics was announced. [1] The only problem is, the work it celebrates can do no such thing. It is substantively myopic, ideologically conservative, technically weak, and probably net harmful in dealing with the serious real problems it addresses. wrong and harmful.
The biggest problem — and perhaps it is a problem as much of the Nobel Prize committee and jury as of the recipients of the prize—is the hoopla that celebrates the work for which this prize was offered as making a big contribution to solving a big social problem, the problem of poverty. The author’s’ work does indeed talk of “alleviating the problem of poverty ,” the problem of poverty the prize was won for [2]for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”-but the work is dealing with it in an extremely superficial way, looking at some of its undesirable effects on its victims , proposing to rationalize ;and make more efficient small steps designed at best to ameliorate the consequences of poverty, it doe not in any way address its causes. In announcing the Nobel Prize award in economics, the prize jury said, “This year’s laureates have introduced a new approach to obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty,” the jury said. “The authors found efficient ways of combating poverty by breaking down difficult issues into smaller, more manageable questions, which can then be answered through field experiments, the jury said.”pp 78.
Thus, while doing what it does do may make a relatively small contribution to some minor obstacles to reducing poverty a little, it should not be allowed to detract from the attention needed to tackle the real causes of poverty. To present, as a proposal to alleviate children’s poverty, a proposal to put surveillance cameras in classrooms as a way of reducing teacher absenteeism on the theory that it reduces the effectiveness of their teaching and thus their students’ ability to cope with poverty, really requires some thought about the other implications such a course might have. Attention to examining teacher’s pay, or their working conditions, or their teaching supplies or administrative support, working conditions, should certainly deserve some thought as well. Is surprising us by proving that deworming children leads to improved attendance at school really “a new approach to obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty?,”
[1] Prize announcement. Nobel Prize.org. Nobel Media AB 2019. Tue. 29 Oct 2019. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2019/prize-announcement/
[2] “The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 was awarded jointly to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer “
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