STOCKHOLM, Nov 24: As preparations to mark the 100th anniversary of the first Nobel Prizes head into the final stretch, four members of the Nobel family have called for the name to be dropped from the Economics Prize.

The four, writing in one of Sweden’s largest circulation newspapers, Svenska Dagbladet, claim the prize is not worthy of the Nobel name.

While the awards for Peace, Literature, Medicine, Physics and Chemistry were all created by Swedish scholar and inventor Alfred Nobel in his 1895 will and first awarded in 1901, the Economics Prize was created by the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, in 1968 in honour of its tercentenary.

According to the four Nobel family members, the Economics Prize does not reflect the spirit of Alfred Nobel.

“Had Alfred Nobel really wanted such a prize, he would have named it himself in his will. He did not, and therefore the Riksbank’s prize should not be considered a Nobel prize,” wrote the four, who are great-grandchildren of Alfred’s brother Ludvig. Alfred, who never married, has no direct descendants.

They claim that while Alfred Nobel was a successful industrialist who made a fortune from his invention of dynamite in 1866, he in fact disliked business and economics.

They quoted a letter he wrote, in which he said: “There is not a single reason why I, who have no business schooling and heartily hate it, should be tormented by all these matters.”—AFP