The "Nobel Prize" economy this year is an excellent vintage . It rewards the institutionalist school, which was dominant United States before the war, and who found, from the 1980s, a vibrant, thanks to the work of Williamson. Williamson's ideas, which are a development from those of Coase are the kind that are at once simple, obvious once that someone has written, but that better think a large part of reality.
They allowed the economy to truly open the "black box" of the company, giving a response to the question: why are there companies if the market is a place for optimal coordination? The answer is that getting to the market is sometimes more expensive than producing in a hierarchical organization, but the result of "transaction costs" involved the use of a contract with another player in a market . These costs include for example the risk that the contract is not executed, or that it is evil. If you produce yourself, these risks continue to exist. But then there are new costs associated with managing the organization's hierarchy. In the end, neither the firm nor the market is, in itself, to produce the optimal solution: it depends on what is to happen, and the situation, since this is what will determine what is the least expensive. Williamson's work was to clarify what kept the costs of appeal to the market, and therefore under what circumstances firms prefer to produce in-house.
But rather than pursuing, developing works of the winners, what of other have already fact, I develop some thoughts of a sociological nature, what it means to win a Nobel Prize. The "raw" This year has, indeed, as we shall see, a rich sociological significance.
Prices honorary citizen of a particular rite of passage. Their peculiarity is the sociologically limited number of people accessing it: it is this rarity which base their symbolic value.
Contrary to what some may believe, characteristic of a ceremonial rite, like any rite of passage, is not, essentially, to separate an "elite" of the mass of a population by the "leading economists" of all, numerous economists. Of course, this is an honorary award, and that's how we think. But sociologically, it does more: it tie members of a group that can potentially reach this price, even if it is very unlikely to succeed, those who do will never, under any circumstances. By doing this, it gives a greater symbolic value, not just those who win the prize, but to all those who do not win, but could in principle do so. It also gives them, in turn, an "essence" higher social, since it is their rite potentially accessible. Instead, what can not access are, simply because the price is, symbolically devalued. A rite honorary enhances not only the few individuals who access, but the entire group as these individuals belong, and devalues the individual sub-groups to which they do not belong.
Here, the reference group is that of scientific researchers, especially those working on human societies and their operation. The Nobel Prize in this group, is shared between a subpopulation "economists", because all members can potentially win, and, secondly, all other social scientists, who may never be. Some are "real" scientists, as their discipline is one of those who come with a Nobel Prize. The others are not entirely scientific, since they can not win the Nobel.
That's how we should understand the importance for economists that price: it allowed them to pass on the good side, symbolically valued, the rite of passage. We know, of course, that the "Nobel Prize" of economics is not a Nobel Prize, since it does not appear in the will of Alfred Nobel founder and is not awarded by the Academy Science of Sweden. But everyone forgets the delight of economists who do not like to be reminded, as it is in their social value. Instead, sociologists devote collectively, a true hatred for this award: the fact that they can not access it prohibits any recovery symbolic worst, it devalues them, since it emphasizes that they are not really of science-otherwise they would have a Nobel.
Here is the sociological significance of this year's award for the first time he has been awarded to a woman (another group previously excluded from the rite) and a political scientist. This raises the reflection, which is a form of sociology wild, Steven Levitt . Commenting on the fact that it is a political scientist who has obtained, he wrote:
The Short answer So Is That The Economics Profession IS going to hate the prize going to Ostrom Even More Than Republicans Hated the Peace prize going to Obama . Economists want this year To Be economists' prize (after all, economists are self-intéressée). This award Demonstrates, in a Way That No previous prize has, thats the prize Is Moving Toward a Nobel Prize in Social Science, Not A Nobel in economics.
The winner of this year changes, in fact, sociological significance of the prize: a political scientist has won, so it is that political science is as much a science as economics-and, therefore, this means that the economy has no higher value in social sciences. Things are of course more complex: a winner is not enough to change the nature of a rite of passage. Only can a lasting change in the population that accesses it. Moreover, any rite has a normative dimension: it forces to meet the requisites prescribed for the pass. Here are those of the economics mainstream, which Ostrom is indeed very close. Rather than introducing other social sciences in the fields of economic thinking, the Nobel can instead "economization" these social sciences, including enhancing the assumptions, methods and problems of the economy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment