Chinanews, October 11 (Guan Na) The 2021 "Nobel Prize Week" has come to an end.

On October 11th, Beijing time, the Nobel Prize in Economics was announced as the finale. Half of the awards were awarded to economist David Card for his "empirical research contribution to labor economics"; the other half was awarded to economist Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbens, in recognition of "their methodological contributions in causality analysis."

Image source: Screenshot of Nobel Prize social media account.

  As the last prize drawn, the Nobel Prize in Economics has a "character characteristic" that is different from other "brothers and sisters".

The seemingly unattainable economics has actually been integrated into reality and has been inextricably linked with our lives.

Awards full of "personality"

  As we all know, the Nobel Prize was established in accordance with the will of the Swedish chemist Nobel, but the Nobel Prize in Economics is not the case. It is the only "non-Nobel Prize" officially awarded by the Nobel Foundation.

Investigating its origin, perhaps we can get the answer from its official name "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" (The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel).

Although it is not a "pure blood", the Economics Prize has the same status as the other 5 Nobel Prizes.

  Since it is not a "classic" Nobel Prize, the Nobel Prize in Economics has become the "youngest" award. It was first awarded in 1969, while other Nobel Prizes have been awarded since 1901.

  Although the Nobel Prize in Economics is the youngest, the age of award winners is generally high, with an average of about 67 years old.

The American economist Leonid Hurwicz, who won the award in 2007, was the oldest winner. He was 90 years old at the time of the award.

The youngest winner is Esther Duflo, the French-American economist who won the award in 2019. He was 46 years old at the time of the award.

  The economist Duflo is not only the youngest winner, but also the second female winner.

Since the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded, there have only been two female winners.

The first female winner was Elinor Ostrom, the American economist who won the award in 2009.

Data map: The 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics was announced, and the three shared the award.

"High cold" research into the "temperature" of life

  Speaking of economics, I believe most people will find it unpredictable.

But in fact, the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics have moved from theory to practice, turning the seemingly "highly cold" economics into more "down-to-earth" economics.

Some of these contents can guide our lives.

  For example, in a vegetable market, if two people are interested in the same cabbage, there is a bidding relationship between them.

When multiple customers bid for the same item, an auction occurs.

In the end, someone bought the cabbage for 500 yuan. Although they won the cabbage, they fell into the "winner's curse", that is, the bid exceeded the true value of the item.

So, how to avoid the "winner's curse" and make the best offer?

  The 2020 winners Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson contributed to solving this problem.

They improved the auction theory and designed a reasonable auction model.

They invented the Simultaneous Multi-round Auction (SMRA), which has brought huge revenue to the sales of radio channels on a global scale.

In addition, this auction model can also be used for government electricity and natural gas auctions, benefiting buyers, sellers and taxpayers all over the world.

On December 8, 2020, at an awards ceremony held in Palo Alto, California, Nobel Prize winners Robert Wilson (left) and Paul Milgrom (right) took off before the awards Group photo with masks.

  In addition to buying and selling, the Nobel Prize winners in economics have also contributed to the reduction of global poverty.

  In 2019, according to the awards committee, there are still more than 700 million people living in extreme poverty in the world, and nearly 5 million children die before the age of 5 each year, mostly due to diseases that can be easily cured.

  In the same year, Abigail Banagher, Esther Duflo and Michael Kramer won awards for their “experimental approach to reducing global poverty.” The award committee stated that their research “has greatly improved Has improved our ability to fight global poverty".

  The key to the research of the three winners is to break down the global poverty problem into smaller and more precise problems.

For example, in order to find ways to improve the health of children, experiments can be designed in terms of education methods, medical and health systems, and access to credit to prove the effectiveness of interventions.

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