The Nobel Memorial Prize for Daniel Kahneman

Abstract

In an essay on his web page, Paul Krugman recommends as his first rule of research to young economists that they Listen to the Gentiles.... Pay attention to what intelligent people are saying, even if they do not have your customs or speak your analytical language. His own context for applying this principle was in understanding that international-trade economists should pay attention to the field of geography: Geographers and regional scientists have amassed a great deal of evidence on the nature and importance of localized external economies, and organized that evidence intelligently if not rigorously. To urge an academic discipline to listen to its critics, and to embrace the insights of another discipline even when the language and conceptual differences between the disciplines invite dismissal, is excellent advice. It is rarely followed. But it is even rarer for critics from one discipline to persistently and intelligently insinuate themselves into another discipline by making an effort to use a common language and to minimize conceptual differences. Yet this is what two brilliant psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, have done since the early 1970s. It is surely one of the biggest boons to the social sciences in recent decades that they have launched this research program so relevant for economics, doing so with an ability and willingness to address economists in economic language and venues, and with an emphasis on the implications of their research for economic questions. In recognition of these contributions, Daniel Kahneman was awarded The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel in October 2002.'