Alfred Nobel never actually established a Nobel Prize in Economics when he wrote his famous will outlining the awards for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace.

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Alfred Nobel never actually established a Nobel Prize in Economics when he wrote his famous will outlining the awards for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. The economics prize was actually created nearly seventy years later in 1968 by the Swedish central bank, who sneakily funded the award and named it in Nobel's memory to make their profession seem way more prestigious. Real scientists constantly complain that economics is too heavily based on unpredictable human behavior to be considered a hard science alongside quantum physics and molecular biology. But thanks to this brilliant PR stunt, economists get to wear fancy tuxedos in Stockholm, shake hands with the Swedish King, and pretend their wildly inaccurate inflation forecasts belong in the same category as curing infectious diseases. It is quite literally the most successful case of professional stolen valor in the history of academia