The Nobel prize in economics celebrates an empirical revolution

A “CREDIBILITY REVOLUTION” has transformed economics since the 1990s. Before that, theory ruled the roost and empirical work was a poor second cousin. “Hardly anyone takes data analysis seriously,” declared Edward Leamer of the University of California, Los Angeles, in a paper published in 1983. Yet within a decade, new and innovative work had altered the course of the profession, such that the lion’s share of notable research today is empirical. For enabling this transition David Card of the University of California at Berkeley shares this year’s economics Nobel prize, awarded on October 11th, with Joshua Angrist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Guido Imbens of Stanford University.