The Prize

Abstract

The Nobel Memorial Prize is the only prize associated with Alfred Nobel that is awarded to the social sciences. Yet Nobel had not actually founded what is now formally called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Nobel lamented his creation of dynamite, which had yielded numerous ways to contribute to the social good, but also produced some less benign applications. When Nobel determined he would create a legacy that would celebrate contributions by intellectuals to the social good, the disciplines of finance and economics had not yet entered the scientific realm. Only with the subsequent development of economics and finance as a social science which could inform and enhance the public good have these disciplines become candidates for recognition by the Nobel Committee.