The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy, and the Market Turn

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Economic theory may be speculative, but its impact is powerful and real. Since the 1970s, it has been closely associated with a sweeping change around the world--the "market turn." This is what Avner Offer and Gabriel Soderberg call the rise of market liberalism, a movement that, seeking to replace social democracy, holds up buying and selling as t

Reviews

Selected for Canada's Financial Post Best Personal Finance and Economics Books of 2016 Selected for Bloomberg View's "The Writing that Shaped Economic Thinking in 2016" "Fascinating."--Justin Fox, Bloomberg View "As intellectual, social, and political history, The Nobel Factor is well worth your time getting stuck into."--Stephen Kinsella, Irish Economy "This book is hugely persuasive about economics, where the knowledge displayed is extraordinary and the judgments highly persuasive."--Jim Tomlinson, Long Run, EHS blog "There is much to be commended in The Nobel Factor. The close attention to the history of the Prize in Economics, the careful collection--and correlation--of data on the winners with broader intellectual and political trends makes the book a valuable guide."--Siddharth Singh, Open Magazine "Authors Avner Offer and Gabriel Soderberg ... trace the powerful effects of the [Nobel] prize."--Andrew Allentuck, Financial Post "Through thorough research of the publicly available archives and interviews with participants in the award process, the authors show both ideological and scientific criteria have operated, and, while science ended up lending a hand to ideology, it also sowed the seeds for dissent; scientific criteria drove the prize committee 'into a refutation of scientific economics.'"--Choice "Offer and Soderberg's story of the origins, recipients and impact of the Nobel Prize in Economics is intellectual history at its best... The failure of neoliberal economics to predict devastating debt crises and stem destabilising poverty suggests that economics is due for a return to the workbench. This book makes an important contribution to such a rethink."--E. Stina Lyon, Times Higher Education "Well-informed, trenchant."--Foreign Affairs "An important book. It will prove fascinating for all economics junkies, plus those interested in any and all Nobel Prizes."--Walter Block, San Francisco Book Review "[An] excellent book."--Peter Radford, Real-World Economics Review blog

Author Bio

Avner Offer is Chichele Professor Emeritus of Economic History at the University of Oxford and a fellow of All Souls College and the British Academy. His books include The Challenge of Affluence. Gabriel Soderberg is a researcher in the Department of Economic History at Uppsala University in Sweden.