Jews and economics.

We know that Jews have won a disproportionate number of Nobel Prizes,

over 20% of them from a group that represents 0.2% of the world population

and overrepresentation of 100 to 1.

But the most striking disproportion is in the field of economics. The first Nobel Prize in

Economics was awarded in 1969. The most recent winner in 2017 was Richard Thaler. In total,

there have been 79 laureates of whom 29 were Jews, that is over 36%. Among famous Jewish economists, one of the

first was David Ricardo, inventor of the theory of comparative advantage, which Paul Samuelson

called the only true and non-obvious theory in the social sciences. Then there was John von Neumann inventor of game theory,

creatively enlarged by Nobel Prize winner Robert Orman, Milton Friedman developed monetary economics,

Keith Arrow welfare economics, and Joe Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs, development economics.

Daniel Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky created the field of behavioral

economics. Gary Becker applied economic analysis to other areas of decision-making, as did Richard

Posner to the interplay of economics and law. To these, we must add outstanding figures. In economic

and financial policy, Larry Summers, Alan

Greenspancer, James Wolfenson, Janet Yellen, Stanley Fisher and others too numerous to mention.

And it began with Joseph, who in this week's Parishar became the world's first economist. Interpreting

Pharaoh's dreams, he develops the theory of trade cycles,

seven fat years, followed by seven lean years, a cycle that still seems approximately to hold.

Joseph also intuited that when a head of state dreams about cows and ears of corn, he is probably unconsciously thinking

about macroeconomics. The disturbing nature of the dream suggested that God was sending

an advance warning of a black swan, a rare phenomenon for which conventional economics is unprepared.

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