Nobel Prize
BERKELEY’S NEW NOBELIST…A social scientist
Not often is a social scientist is awarded a Nobel Prize, however, this past December, UC Berkeley’s Department of Economics Professor, David Card, won the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was honored for work that dramatically shifted understanding of inequality and the social and economic forces that impact low-wage workers. Professor Card has written research papers on race, ethnicity, and segregation, as well as immigration, health insurance, and education specific to first-generation Americans.
Why is this important to me and why am I writing about it? Because Social Policy Professors that I follow such as Professor Card, Professor Guryan at Northwestern, Vanderbilt’s Professor Gonzalas and UCLA’s Till von Wachter spend their lives producing profound research yet those not involved with public policy or government programs rarely come across their work. It is comforting that the Nobel Prize Committee and the members of the Academy do recognize the importance of research that is not readily available in mainstream media. They celebrate the sage research of the world’s academics, but as you will learn below, they only promote the actual award recipients and not the thousands of applicants.
Being awarded a Nobel Prize is no easy feat. A candidate must be nominated by qualified people that mean the highest of standards in the Nobel community. For each award, 3,000 forms are sent to prize candidates. The selection process takes 15 months in total and requires the eyes of dozens of experts in each field. Unfortunately, the process is confidential and therefore no one production or awareness of the context of research being judged for the award. Imagine an Olympic games in which you had no idea who was competing until the podium. The Nobel committee does not even have a public competition of the front runners. There are no qualifying competitions or opening ceremonies. Of the 3,000 less than 1% are awarded the Nobel Prize. 1% of the applicants have their research shared at the time of the award. The other 99% do not have their names or applicants for 50 years.
I wish there were other media venues or online platforms that could serve as a library of data other than sites such as scholar.google.com. That site in particular is very informative as it provides access to a wealth of articles and even case law, but it does not highlight recent research or research that is original in thought. Readers must know what type of research they are interested in and may not discover new topics of relevance. I also often access onlinelibrary. wiley.com however, to gain access you much be an institution or pay to view. We need a database that poles university policy institutions or academic departments and highlights current research and ties them to current policy issues. I will have to ponder this farther for the next blog.