Three economists received Nobel Prize for work that “challenged conventional wisdom”.
David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens have made surprising answers to some of society’s most pressing questions.
Thus, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognised David Card for groundbreaking work on minimum wages, immigration and education.
He showed, using a natural experiment, that increasing the minimum wage does not necessarily lead to fewer jobs.
Moreover, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens received the other half of the prize.
“Card’s studies of core questions for society and Angrist and Imbens’ methodological contributions have shown that natural experiments are a rich source of knowledge.
Prof Card thought the news of the award was “a joke,” according to UC Berkeley.
“My contributions are pretty modest,” he further said. “It’s about trying to get more scientific tie-in and evidence-based analysis in economics.
Their research has substantially improved our ability to answer key causal questions, which has been of great benefit to society,” Peter Fredriksson, chair of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee, said in a statement.
The prize, officially known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, was not instituted by Alfred Nobel.
But, Sweden’s central bank has established and awarded it in memory of Nobel.
Card will receive one half of the 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.1 million) prize. Meanwhile, the two remaining economists will share the remaining prize money.
