General Director of the Ivolga Capital investment company Andrei Khokhrin notes that the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences shows increasing concerns about social inequality.
“The presentation of the Nobel Prize, at least of the Nobel Prize in economics, is not only the evaluation of someone’s contribution to science and practical activity, but also a reflection of public sentiments,” Khokhrin said in an interview to Invest Foresight.
He believes that the modern world has been witnessing the growth of the global GDP since the 1980s-1990s, and the growth of wealth inequality, which keeps increasing even in the Socialist European countries.
“We understand why: production processes are becoming more automated, and the incomes of people engaged in unskilled labor are falling. The solution seems to be simple: it is necessary to increase taxes for rich people and create social programs for the poor. But it is the government’s job, while the efficiency of the state administration in difficult situations is not obvious. As a result, we have a growing bureaucratic system.”
This year’s Nobel Prize was awarded for ‘experimental approach,’ that is, for a concrete model of alleviating global poverty. At the same time, the expert notes, the modeling was done by individuals, which means that the presentation of the Nobel Prize for something practical, not for fundamental research, shows that the public is ready to counteract social problems by itself, in accordance with its own logic.