For nearly 60 years, October headlines have announced the “Nobel Prize in Economics.” Alfred Nobel never created one. Sweden’s central bank simply invented it in 1968, borrowing the Nobel name and the authority that came with it. Just six years later, winner Friedrich Hayek warned the prize would confer “an authority which in economics no man ought to possess,” then accepted it anyway. Days after this year’s award, host Vinny Tafuro sat down with Cahal Moran, economist and host of Unlearning Economics. Unlike the Nobel Prizes in physics or chemistry, Cahal argues, this prize rewards no discovery, yet gives its winners real and undemocratic influence over policy. Their conversation explores the prize’s dodgy origins, who it elevates, who it almost entirely leaves out, and why it perhaps shouldn’t exist at all.

Guest Links

• Unlearning Economics on YouTube
• Why We’re Getting Poorer: Economics for an Unfair World, Cahal Moran (2025)
• Why You Should Ignore the Economics Nobel Prize, Cahal Moran, IAI

Referenced in this episode

• Rethinking Economics
• 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize announcement, Robert Hall and Michael Woodford
• Swiftynomics, How Women MasterMind and Redefine Our Economy, Misty L Heggeness
• Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?, Katrine Marçal

Referenced Design Economics Podcast Episodes

• Episode 19: Misty Heggeness on Swiftynomics
• Episode 20: Erin Hotchkiss on Fragments & Frameworks
• Team Human: Enshittification – And How We Stop It (w/Cory Doctorow)

A note on black holes: The famous first photo of a black hole, mentioned in the episode, came in 2019 and did not win a Nobel. A year later, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez for proving black holes are real, including a supermassive one at the center of our galaxy.

Click here to view the episode transcript.

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