Inequality, climate change, and digital platforms: An analytical framework based on the Nobel Prize in Economics

Abstract

This article develops a conceptual framework for the evolution of modern economic ideas, using the Nobel Prize in Economics as a central theme, and applies this framework to three major problems of the 21st century: inequality, environmental issues, and digital platforms. The Nobel Prize is examined as a cumulative process in which intertemporal choice and expectations, information and incentive failures, behavioral departures from rationality, political economy and the institutional context, and empirical research grounded in causal identification converge. This analysis is based on two components: the formal modeling of these concepts, and the conceptual reconstruction of a carbon tax within a political economy setting characterized by imperfect information and expectations. Building on this foundation, analogous models were developed to address inequality and regulate digital platforms. The unified framework enables a critical assessment of prevalent strategies, such as regulating the environment solely through Pigouvian taxes, managing digital platforms exclusively through price-based approaches, or assuming that increased human capital is the only effective process to reduce social inequality.