The Curious Case of the Three Adam Smiths: Women and the Nobel Prize in Economics

On the 300th anniversary of his birth, one thing can be said about Adam Smith: entire libraries (real and digital) have been filled with analyses of his thought. This trend does not seem to be on the verge of ending soon. Everybody hopes to uncover the “real Smith.” This article has a more modest double aim. First, it intends to delineate three interpretations, or portraits, of Adam Smith’s thought in part of the recent literature: the self-interested Smith, the sympathetic Smith and the compatibilist Smith. The different colors used for each of these portraits of the Scottish thinker stand for the interpretations of his view on the moral nature of the market sphere. Second, I try to answer the question whether the three female Nobel laureates can be classified as “Smithian” scholars. By applying the categories elaborated within the three Smith portraits to the work of the three women who, so far, have won the Nobel Prize in Economics, I show that only the sympathetic Smith can be considered a feminist economist. He could therefore be viewed as an ally for the feminist economics project.