Douglass North speaks out on 2009 Nobel Prize in economics
“A lot of people were horrified that it was the first time a political scientist got the prize,” says Douglass C. North in a video interview on the 2009 Nobel prize in economics. North North, a 1993 recipient of the prestigious award, defends this year’s winners, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, as pioneers in the New Institutional Economics that uses an interdisciplinary approach to research. Traditional economists who favor formal mathematical model-based theory are critical of the institutional approach and Nobel recognition of the social sciences versus pure economics. North talks about this year’s winners, their work and New Institutional Economics in accompanying video.