3 economists awarded Nobel for work on real-world experiments

 

A trio of economists were awarded the Nobel Prize on Monday for showing that precise — and surprising — answers to some of society's most pressing questions can be gleaned from experiments rooted in real life.

David Card was recognized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for groundbreaking work on minimum wages, immigration and education. He showed, using a natural experiment — where researchers study situations as they unfold in the real world — that increasing the minimum wage does not necessarily lead to fewer jobs.

The other half of the prize was awarded to Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens for demonstrating how precise conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments.

"Card's studies of core questions for society and Angrist and Imbens' methodological contributions have shown that natural experiments are a rich source of knowledge. Their research has substantially improved our ability to answer key causal questions, which has been of great benefit to society," Peter Fredriksson, chair of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee, said in a statement.