3 US-Based Economists Receive Economics Nobel Prize

Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Goran K Hansson, center, announces the 2021 Nobel prize for economics, flanked by members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Peter Fredriksson, left, and Eva Mork, during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. (Claudio Bresciani/TT via AP)
Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Goran K Hansson, center, announces the 2021 Nobel prize for economics, flanked by members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Peter Fredriksson, left, and Eva Mork, during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. (Claudio Bresciani/TT via AP)
TT

3 US-Based Economists Receive Economics Nobel Prize

Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Goran K Hansson, center, announces the 2021 Nobel prize for economics, flanked by members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Peter Fredriksson, left, and Eva Mork, during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. (Claudio Bresciani/TT via AP)
Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Goran K Hansson, center, announces the 2021 Nobel prize for economics, flanked by members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Peter Fredriksson, left, and Eva Mork, during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. (Claudio Bresciani/TT via AP)

Three US-based economists won the 2021 Nobel prize for economics on Monday for pioneering research on the labor market impacts of minimum wage, immigration and education, and for creating the scientific framework to allow conclusions to be drawn from such studies that can’t use traditional methodology.

Canadian-born David Card of the University of California at Berkeley was awarded one half of the prize, while the other half was shared by Joshua Angrist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dutch-born Guido Imbens, 58, from Stanford University.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the three have “completely reshaped empirical work in the economic sciences," reported The Associated Press.

“Card’s studies of core questions for society and Angrist and Imbens’ methodological contributions have shown that natural experiments are a rich source of knowledge,” said Peter Fredriksson, chair of the Economic Sciences Committee. “Their research has substantially improved our ability to answer key causal questions, which has been of great benefit for society.”

Card worked on research that used restaurants in New Jersey and in eastern Pennsylvania to measure the effects of increasing the minimum wage. He and his late research partner Alan Krueger found that an increase in the hourly minimum wage did not affect employment, challenging conventional wisdom which held that an increase in minimum wage will lead to less hiring.

Card’s work also challenged another commonly held idea, that immigrants depress wages for native-born workers. He found that incomes of the native-born can benefit from new immigration, while it is earlier immigrants who are at risk of being negatively affected.

Angrist and Imbens won their half of the award for working out the methodological issues that enable economists to draw solid conclusions about cause and effect even where they cannot carry out studies according to strict scientific methods.

Speaking by phone from his home in Massachusetts, Imbens told reporters gathered for the announcement that he had been asleep when the call came.
“The whole house was asleep, we had a busy weekend.” said Imbens. ”I was absolutely thrilled to hear the news. ”

He said he was especially thrilled for Angrist, who was best man at his wedding.

Unlike the other Nobel prizes, the economics award wasn’t established in the will of Alfred Nobel but by the Swedish central bank in his memory in 1968, with the first winner selected a year later. It is the last prize announced each year.

Last week, the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters have faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder.

Ressa was the only woman honored this year in any category.

The Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to UK-based Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, who was recognized for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee.”

The prize for physiology or medicine went to Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries into how the human body perceives temperature and touch.

Three scientists won the physics prize for work that found order in seeming disorder, helping to explain and predict complex forces of nature, including expanding our understanding of climate change.

Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan won the chemistry prize for finding an easier and environmentally cleaner way to build molecules that can be used to make compounds, including medicines and pesticides.



Wildfires Rage in Los Angeles, Forcing Tens of Thousands to Flee

 Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP)
Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP)
TT

Wildfires Rage in Los Angeles, Forcing Tens of Thousands to Flee

 Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP)
Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP)

A rapidly growing wildfire raged across an upscale section of Los Angeles on Tuesday, destroying numerous buildings and creating traffic jams as more than 30,000 people evacuated, while a second blaze doubled in size some 30 miles inland.

At least 2,921 acres (1,182 hectares) of the Pacific Palisades area between the coastal towns of Santa Monica and Malibu had burned by the Palisades Fire, officials said, after they had already warned of extreme fire danger from powerful winds that arrived following extended dry weather.

A fire official told local television station KTLA that several people were injured, some with burns to faces and hands. The official added that one female firefighter had sustained a head injury.

The second blaze dubbed the Eaton Fire broke out some 30 miles (50 km) inland near Pasadena and doubled in size to 400 acres (162 hectares) in a few hours, according to Cal Fire.

Almost 100 residents from a nursing home in Pasadena were evacuated, according to CBS News. Video showed elderly residents, many in wheelchairs and on gurneys, crowded onto a smokey and windswept parking lot as fire trucks and ambulances attended.

Fire officials said a third blaze named the Hurst Fire had started in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley northwest of Los Angeles, prompting evacuations of some nearby residents.

PALISADES FIRE

Witnesses reported a number of homes on fire with flames nearly scorching their cars when people fled the hills of Topanga Canyon, as the fire spread from there down to the Pacific Ocean.

Local media reported the fire had spread north, torching homes near Malibu.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley had earlier told a press conference that more than 25,000 people in 10,000 homes were threatened.

Firefighters in aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop it on the nearby flames. Flames engulfed homes and bulldozers cleared abandoned vehicles from roads so emergency vehicles could pass, television images showed.

The fire singed some trees on the grounds of the Getty Villa, a museum loaded with priceless works of art, but the collection remained safe largely because of preventive efforts to trim brush surrounding the buildings, the museum said.

With only one major road leading from the canyon to the coast, and only one coastal highway leading to safety, traffic crawled to a halt, leading people to flee on foot.

Cindy Festa, a Pacific Palisades resident, said that as she evacuated out of the canyon, fires were "this close to the cars," demonstrating with her thumb and forefinger.

"People left their cars on Palisades Drive. Burning up the hillside. The palm trees - everything is going," Festa said from her car.

Before the fire started, the National Weather Service had issued its highest alert for extreme fire conditions for much of Los Angeles County from Tuesday through Thursday, predicting wind gusts of 50 to 80 mph (80 to 130 kph).

With low humidity and dry vegetation due to a lack of rain, the conditions were "about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather," the Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service said on X.

Governor Gavin Newsom, who declared a state of emergency, said the state positioned personnel, firetrucks and aircraft elsewhere in Southern California because of the fire danger to the wider region, he added.

The powerful winds changed President Joe Biden's travel plans, grounding Air Force One in Los Angeles. He had planned to make a short flight inland to the Coachella Valley for a ceremony to create two new national monuments in California but the event was rescheduled for a later date at the White House.

"I have offered any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire," Biden said in a statement. A federal grant had already been approved to help reimburse the state of California for its fire response, Biden said.

Pacific Palisades is home to several Hollywood stars. Actor James Woods said on X he was able to evacuate but added, "I do not know at this moment if our home is still standing."

Actor Steve Guttenberg told KTLA television that friends of his were impeded from evacuating because others had abandoned their cars on the road.

"It's really important for everybody to band together and don't worry about your personal property. Just get out," Guttenberg said. "Get your loved ones and get out."