'Tis nobeler?

I didn't realise until this morning that those revered economists, Stiglitz, Friedman, van Hayek, etc., don't actually have Nobel Prizes.

The Nobel Prize is an international award given yearly since 1901 for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and for peace. Oops, no economics; sorry, boys (and it is boys).

In 1968, the Bank of Sweden instituted the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize.

See, "A Nobel? If you're old, male, American":

Economists tend not to question why they alone among social scientists enjoy their very own Nobel Prize.

Economists are not known for shunning recognition. When the dismal scientists were left out of Alfred Nobel's famous will in 1895 they contrived their own award. Swedish central bankers came up with the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel - knowing, of course, it would become known in time as the Nobel Prize for Economics.

To win, says Treasury's Gerry Antioch in his article "Brilliant Minds" in today's Economic Roundup journal, it pays to be old.

The second criteria for winning the economics prize is you have to be a man. Unlike the five other prizes - for peace, literature, medicine, chemistry and physics - no woman has ever won the prize for economics.

Third, the Nobel Prize is awarded for brilliant innovations, not brilliant individuals.

Fourth, many prizes are now shared between two or three laureates. As the joke goes, economics is the only field in which two people can share a Nobel Prize for saying opposing things. Gunnar Myrdal and Friedrich von Hayek come to mind.

Forty of the 57 economics laureates are American and 45 were working at the time in the United States.

Sixth, Nobel laureates always work at the best universities.

The University of Chicago has boasted nine laureates since Milton Friedman won the prize for his work on monetary policy 30 years ago. Berkely, Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford, MIT, Columbia and Princeton have had their share of Nobel laureates too.

Treasury stands alone among Canberra's most powerful departments by maintaining integrity and intellectual firepower. But, despite the how-to guide in today's Roundup, the department's leading lights are sceptical of their chances.

"I've seen what a Nobel Laureate looks like and they don't look like me," says one. "Nobel prizes do not go to practical people."