The Nobel Prize and the Big Topic Per Se

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The academic system in the United States is structured in a way that discourages people from looking at big questions. It's hard for people with views outside the mainstream to be heard or recognized, he says. Paul Krugman agreed with some of my points but said it's not really the big topics per se that matter.

Author and economist Branko Milanovic of CUNY talks about the big questions in economics with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Milanovic argues that the Nobel Prize Committee is missing an opportunity to encourage more ambitious work by awarding the prize to economists tackling questions like the rise of China's economy and other challenging but crucial areas of scholarship. In the conversation, he lays out what those questions might be and discusses what we know and don't know in these areas.