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THE NOBEL ECONOMICS prize has been awarded to Claudia Goldin, a professor at Harvard University, for advancing understanding of women’s labour market outcomes.
Professor Goldin is only the third woman to win the prize, which was announced by Hans Ellegren, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm today.
Prof Goldin’s research revealed the main factors and sources which contribute to the gender pay gap and provided the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labour market participation through the centuries.
Jakob Svensson, chairman of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said: “Understanding women’s role in the labour market is important for society.”
Thanks to Claudia Goldin’s groundbreaking research, we now know much more about the underlying factors and which barriers may need to be addressed in the future.”
While the research does not offer solutions, but it allows policymakers to tackle the entrenched problem, said Randi Hjalmarsson, a member of the prize committee.
“She explains the source of the gap, and how it’s changed over time and how it varies with the stage of development. And therefore, there is no single policy,” he said.
“So it’s a complicated policy question because, if you don’t know the underlying reason, a certain policy won’t work.”
However, “by finally understanding the problem and calling it by the right name, we will be able to pave a better out forward”, said Hjalmarsson, who added that Prof Goldin’s discoveries have “vast societal implications”.
BREAKING NEWS
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2023
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2023 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Claudia Goldin “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes.”#NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/FRAayC3Jwb
Of receiving the award, Prof Goldin (77) “was surprised and very, very glad,” Mr Ellegren said.
It follows the awards in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace that were announced last week.
The economics award was created in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank and is formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
Last year’s winners were former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, Douglas W Diamond and Philip Dybvig for their research into bank failures that helped shape America’s aggressive response to the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
By trawling through the archives and compiling and correcting historical data, this year’s economic sciences laureate Claudia Goldin has been able to present new and often surprising facts. She has also given us a deeper understanding of the factors that affect women’s… pic.twitter.com/uxd4Q188KG
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2023
Only two of the 92 economics laureates honoured have been women.
A week ago, Hungarian-American Katalin Kariko and American Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in medicine.
On Tuesday, the physics prize went to French-Swedish physicist Anne L’Huillier, French scientist Pierre Agostini and Hungarian-born Ferenc Krausz.
US scientists Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov won the chemistry prize on Wednesday.
They were followed by Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, who was awarded the prize for literature.
And on Friday, jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi won the peace prize.
The prizes are handed out at awards ceremonies in December in Oslo and Stockholm.
They carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (£820,000). Winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and diploma.
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It’s long known that men work longer hours and sacrifice time with family to get ahead in their careers.
Also obviously it’s women who have children so are out of the workplace for up to a year or more in some cases. They miss opportunities for advancement.
If it was cheaper to just hire women yet get the same outcome then why don’t companies do that.
Maybe you should read professor Goldin’s work and find out.
Nobel Prize for fiction more like.
@Tommy Haze: show us your prize, haven’t got one…ok then
“Last year’s winners were former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, Douglas W Diamond and Philip Dybvig for their research into bank failures ”
“The Fed model was as advanced as you could possibly get it. All the new concepts with every theoretical advance was embodied in that model – rational expectations, monetarism, all sorts of sophisticated means of thinking about how the economy worked. The Fed has 250 [economic] PhDs in that division and they are all very smart.” And yet in September 2008, this pride was shattered when those venerated models suddenly stopped working.” Alan Greenspan
This is what happens when experimental theorists attempt to predict outcomes, in finance modelling, in climate change modelling, in everything. They seem even proud of the havoc
@Gearoid O’Ceilleachair: exactly that .
Nonsense
@john mac: Which of her published papers do you disagree with? I must have missed your rebuttal in the Journal of Finance or the Harvard Business Review. Perhaps you could send me a link?
@Kevin Collins: Harvard Business review. The same publication who refuse to rank the best performing CEO’s anymore because most of CEOs are white men so the candidate pool lacks diversity.
Yeah take whatever you read there with a pinch of salt.
@Shane Kinsella (Kinsey): thanks you answered the question
“A FAIR AND JUST SOCIETY OFFERS
EQUALITY OF
OPPORTUNITY TO ALL.
BUT IT CANNOT
PROMISE AND SHOULD
NOT TRY TO ENFORCE
SAMENESS.”
Christina Hoff Sommers
@mainmsam: copy and paste job, so please excuse the grammar thanks in advance but Ms.Hoff Sommers makes a very good point
Says he; ‘We now know much more about the underlying factors contributing to the pay gap …. they have Fanny’s’.
Open the comments on gaza
@Spudgesh: raze it!
Why does the Journal not make an attempt to tell.us about her work? Would.we.not understand? Or perhaps the autor does not understand the work enough to give us a synopsis?
When academic modellers make predictions, they invariably lack consideration and create havoc in the process. Natural selection predicted a future state of human biology that was eventually picked up in 1930’s Germany-
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.” Darwin 1871
Students should learn about the dangerous academic predictions of natural selection so that they do not acquire prejudice.
have your say