The morning of Monday, October 11, began with the appointment of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to David Card, Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbens as the winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics.
In a press conference organized this Monday, the organizers decided to divide the also well-known Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.
The committee recognized Canadian David Card with half the award for his “empirical contributions to the economics of labor.” The other half was awarded jointly to the American Joshua D. Angrist and the Dutch-American Guido W. Imbens for their “methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships.”
The financial incentive of SEK 10 million will be distributed in the same way. 50% of the total will go to Card while the rest will have to be split between Angrist and Imbens.
In a press release issued by the organization, they highlight that this year’s economics laureates “They have provided new insights into the labor market and demonstrated what conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments.” The jury added that this approach has expanded to other branches and revolutionized scientific research.
Precisely, using natural experiments, David Card managed to analyze the effects on the labor market of minimum wages, immigration and education. His inquiries, since the early 1990s, have challenged conventional wisdom and provided additional insight.
“The results showed, among other things, that the salary increase does not necessarily lead to fewer jobs. Now we know that the income of people born in a country can benefit from the new immigration ”, details part of the document provided by the Royal Academy.
Although the practical framework had already been established, the interpretation of data from natural experiments was complex to perform until in the mid-1990s, Angrist and Imbens solved the methodological problem, demonstrating how accurate conclusions can be drawn.
Winners’ track record
David Card was born in Guelph, Canada, in 1956. He has a PhD from Princeton University in 1983. He is currently Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States.
Joshua D. Angrist is a native of Columbus, Ohio (USA), and was born in 1960. In 1989 he achieved, like Card, a PhD at Princeton U. He is currently teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Guido W. Imbens, 58, is from Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In 1991 he graduated as a PhD from Brown University. He is a renowned professor at Stanford University.
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Kingston is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
