Is the Nobel Prize Really a Social Prize?

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The Nobel Prize does not play a role in honoring discordant voices, unorthodox voices, radical voices and the profession is not very good at that as it's currently structured. It certainly tends to be focused on what we might call the mainstream. And one of the challenges of being outside the mainstream as I am, both ideologically, in many, many ways, is that when I see the people on the inside, I don't necessarily think I'm right and they're wrong.

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.