In connection with today’s announcement of the 2016 winner Nobel Prize in economics, the Long Run blog of the EHS has published a review Amber Offer and Gabriel Soderberg’s The Nobel Factor” The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy and the Market Turn (Princeton, 2016). This book gives a good historical explanation for why the economics Nobel exists and the role of the Nobel Prize in the politics of the last half century.
Another perspective on the economics Nobel is provided by this October 2015 podcast by Freakonomics Radio.
The Past Speaks 