William Vickrey & "Nobel prize" in economics

[James Wilson]

Since Marta mentioned his name, those interested in reading more about
1996's Nobel-prize winning economist William Vickrey should check out "The
Cult of Impotence: Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global
Economy" by Linda McQuaig (Viking, Toronto, 1998) Vickrey seems to have
been a pretty good guy if Keynesianism is your cup of tea. Warning to US
readers that most of the McQuaig book is devoted to our fight in Canada
against Friedmanite policies such as NAIRU, but the first chapter is
mostly about Vickrey and how unfortunate it was that he died before he
could use his late-won Nobel fame to really mount his soapbox to rail
against today's high priests of economics.

BTW, I have it from a reliable source that the "Nobel Prize" for economics
was actually (and fairly recently) set up by a bunch of Swedish banks in
order to "capitalize" on the prestige of the "real" Nobel prizes...can
anyone confirm or deny this?

JW