Is the Economics Nobel a Real Nobel Prize? The Honest Answer

What Alfred Nobel's Will Actually Established

Alfred Nobel signed his final will in Paris on 27 November 1895 and died on 10 December 1896. The will directed that the bulk of his estate be converted into a fund whose interest would be distributed annually as prizes to those who had conferred the greatest benefit to humankind, in five specified areas: physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and the promotion of peace between nations. It named the awarding bodies — the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for physics and chemistry, the Karolinska Institute for physiology or medicine, the Swedish Academy for literature, and a committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament for peace. The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900 to administer the estate and the first prizes were awarded in 1901. Economics is not on that list, and no sixth category is mentioned anywhere in the will.

What the Economics Prize Actually Is

The full official name is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It was established in 1968, when the Swedish central bank marked its three-hundredth anniversary with a donation to the Nobel Foundation, and first awarded in 1969 to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen. Its funding comes from an annual contribution by the Riksbank, not from Alfred Nobel's endowment, so the original prize fund is not diluted by it. The Nobel Foundation's own materials describe it as a prize in memory of Alfred Nobel rather than as one of his prizes, and it is generally listed separately in the Foundation's formal documentation. In 1974 the Foundation resolved that no further prizes would be added, which means the economics prize is permanently the only one of its kind.

What the Two Categories Share — and Where They Differ

Same awarding body as two originals: The economics prize is selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, exactly as physics and chemistry are.
Same procedures: Confidential nomination by invited experts, evaluation by a prize committee, a vote by the Academy, and a fifty-year embargo on nomination records.
Same ceremony and prize sum: Laureates receive their award from the Swedish monarch at the Stockholm ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death, and the monetary amount matches that year's other prizes.
Same statutory limits: No more than three recipients per prize, and no posthumous awards.
Different funding source: Financed by the Riksbank's annual contribution rather than the Nobel estate.
Different medal: The economics medal carries its own design and inscription rather than the design used for the original prizes.
Different legal basis: Created by an agreement in 1968 rather than by the 1895 will.

The Objections, Including From the Nobel Family

The criticism is not confined to outsiders. Peter Nobel, a Swedish human rights lawyer and a descendant of Alfred Nobel's brother Ludvig, has repeatedly objected to the association, describing the arrangement as an appropriation of the family name by economists and pointing out that no member of the family ever sought a prize in economics. Other Nobel descendants have joined public statements to similar effect. Friedrich Hayek, receiving the award in 1974, used his banquet speech to say that had he been consulted he would have advised against creating it, on the grounds that it grants an individual economist an influence over non-specialists that no economist should possess. His co-laureate Gunnar Myrdal later argued outright for abolition. A common shorthand used by science writers — that this is the prize Nobel did not create — is accurate.

How to Refer to It Accurately

For most everyday purposes, calling it the Nobel Prize in Economics is understood by everyone and misleads nobody about which award is meant. The problem is only that the shorthand quietly imports the authority of the 1895 will. The precise forms are the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in full, or the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which is the usual scholarly compromise and the form many universities use in official announcements. The word memorial is doing the work: it signals that the prize honours Nobel rather than deriving from him. Whether the distinction matters is a genuine judgement call. What is not a judgement call is the underlying fact, which is that the prize was created seventy-three years after Nobel wrote his will and by an institution he had nothing to do with.