The Nobel FouNdaTioN

The Nobel Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences are recalling the following Nobel Prizes, as we have determined that they were not merited and should never have been awarded. We regret any inconvenience and suffering that granting these prizes may have caused by giving the flawed economic theories propounded by the individuals in question unwarranted credibility and influence on public policy. Further recalls may be necessary this initial step only addresses our most egregious errors.

Milton Friedman University of Chicago, 1976 Original reasons for award: Macroeconomics: for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy. Reason for recall: Friedman was the 20th centurys most prominent supporter of laissez-faire capitalism. Whatever the empirical evidence, he fervently believed that unregulated markets would lead to socially desirable outcomes. His nave belief in the invisible hand and his bias against government spending made him argue that governments role should be largely limited to that of policeman, judge and jailer. Friedman was a monetarist obsessed with controlling inflation who disregarded the social harm caused when monetary policy led to high unemployment levels. The application of his laissezfaire ideology has led to great harm around the world.

Gary S. Becker University of Chicago, 1992 Original reasons for award: Microeconomics and Economic Sociology: for having extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behavior and interaction, including nonmarket behavior. Reason for recall: We have concluded that Beckers efforts to extend rational choice theory into all aspects of human activity turned out to be the extension of defective and highly ideological theory, which led to flawed policies and needless harm. His models were based on assuming that all individuals are always rational and that they constantly seek to maximize their utility in every aspect of their lives and ignored a host of factors that contribute to social problems. Noted feminist economist Barbara Bergmann has described Beckers claims as so preposterous that there is not much danger of their being believed and acted on always excepting the committee that awards Nobel Prizes in Economics. With this recall, we demonstrate that we will no longer allow ourselves to be duped by absurd theory dressed up in elegant math.

Robert M. Solow Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1987 Original reasons for award: Economic Growth Theory: for his contributions to the theory of economic growth. Reason for recall: Since we awarded Solow the prize, it has become abundantly clear that his growth model was so simplistic that it was highly misleading. His model explained growth by assuming that only capital and labor inputs and technical progress were relevant, and it failed to include natural resources or energy as if cars could be made out of tools, workers and knowledge, but without any steel, rubber or fossil fuels. Solow thereby sent economics down a blind alley that has misled economists and politicians into failing to understand that growing economies imply growing demands on the biosphere and worsening environmental degradation. To this day, neoclassical growth models inspired by Solow remain fatally flawed from a biophysical perspective.