Economy: Should Jeff Bezos Get The Nobel Prize?

(Drivebycuriosity) - It is not too early to think about the next Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Months before the award is announced (October) there are intense discussions about who should receive the prestigious prize.  I think Amazon founder & CEO Jeff Bezos should be included inthese considerations. There are at least 2 arguments for that:

1. Bezos is maybe the most influential contemporary economist even though he is putting his theories into practice instead of constructing esoteric mathematical models to be published in academic journals. Amazon`s founder & CEO started his career as an economist and researcher for a hedge fund. He recognized in the early 1990s the enormous economic potential of the Internet and he made use of it (applied economics). He is a pioneer of E-Commerce and Godfathered a technological development which is changing global economy and is making life for most of us much easier. If the Prize is awarded for an important economic discovery, Bezos is a candidate for it.

The economic relevance of the Internet wasn´t so obvious in the 1990s.  Other economists had no clue and they dismissed the Internet. The prestigious New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who received the Nobel Prize in 2008, predicted in 1998 that "the growth of the Internet will slow drastically" and claimed "by 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's" (businessinsider).

About 10 years ago Bezos also discovered the cost advantages of storing information externally on huge computer networks. He created cloud computing, a new industry which offers cheap processing & storing of information. The cloud reduces the costs of managing corporations, researching complicated topics and multiple other complex tasks considerably. Thanks to the cloud, new ideas can spread faster, which is encouraging discoveries and inventions. The cloud boosts science, medicine, the technological progress and the global economy. 

2 Bezos is known to be obsessed with efficiency, cost cutting and customer satisfaction. This behavior forces his competitors & copy cats - like Walmart´s jet.com and many others  -  to also become more efficient and to curb their prices. Bezos´practical economics is now changing the global economy, making companies and other organizations more efficient. Amazon and other online retailers are keeping prices under control and are so supporting the Federal Reserve and other central banks fighting inflation.

 Jeff Bezos` practical economics is changing the world into a better place. Isn´t this worth the Nobel Prize?