Nobel Prizes in economics are awarded for authoring work in economics of “eminent significance” providing “the greatest benefit to humankind.” The recipients provide us with lessons in economics. But the award itself provides lessons in how innovation works: Ideas that sometimes appear trivial, inconsequential, or confusing might be just what is needed. And the consumers should be the ultimate decision makers.

Economics, like all disciplines, is a complex of discoveries nestled in schools of thought, making up its literature, recorded in academic journals and books. Discoveries that have stood the test of time and changed the field are awarded Nobels. But hindsight is 20-20. It’s foresight that is hard. And that is where the award provides lessons in innovation.

Like all innovations, economic discoveries are surprises to the community. Some ideas are embraced quickly because the gap in the literature is known. But others are initially rejected by the literature’s gatekeepers, largely journal editors and the referees who evaluate papers. This points to a challenge for innovators: The more an idea departs from accepted thinking, the harder it can be for experts to distinguish an important breakthrough from a wrong turn.

It is the job of journal editors to make that distinction. They face an asymmetric problem: They must screen out volumes of weak research without screening out game-changing ideas. Expertise helps with the first task. Sometimes it makes the second harder.

Consider some of the Nobel Laureates whose innovations were initially rejected because they looked wrong or trivial. Bertil Ohlin received the prize in 1977 for identifying factors that determine patterns in international trade and how trade affects resources, prices, and incomes. He first presented his idea in 1922 to the editors of the Economic Journal, one of which wrote, “This amounts to nothing and should be refused.” Fortunately, Ohlin wasn’t deterred.

George Akerlof, who won in 2001, had a similar experience. The Nobel committee cited his paper “The Market for Lemons” as “the single most important study in the literature on economics of information.” Yet three of the top economics journals rejected it, thinking it was trivial and too general to be true.

William Sharpe received the award in 1990 for developing the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The Journal of Finance rejected his pioneering paper, with the editor commenting that the assumptions were “preposterous,” making his conclusions “uninteresting.” Sharpe persisted with the journal and was finally successful after an editorship change.

Sometimes the novel idea is too hard to understand. This was the case for Robert Lucas, who won in 1995 for discovering how people form expectations about the future. His first paper on the topic was rejected by the American Economic Review for being too mathematically complex, saying “If it has a clear result, it is hidden by the exposition.”

Sometimes a journal editor takes a chance on a paper that is rejected by the profession’s best experts. This was the case for Paul Krugman, who received the prize in 2008 for explaining how economies of scale impact international trade. One of his foundational papers was rejected by one top journal. When he submitted it to a second journal, two referees recommended rejection. But the editor saw promise and accepted the paper. Good gatekeeping sometimes requires opening the gate.

Sometimes new ideas need new platforms. This was the situation for Richard Thaler, who won a Nobel in 2017 for contributions to behavioral economics. His first paper in the field, “Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice,” was rejected by eight journals before landing in the newly formed Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

What are the general lessons for innovation? One is that some innovations are hard to recognize as life-changing. Microsoft was late seeing the internet as significant, and the Department of Justice failed to see how AI was redefining search. Another lesson is that important innovations are often hard to understand. Using a personal computer required specialized skills before graphical interfaces brought the technologies to almost everyone.

And gatekeepers matter, but consumers matter more. AT&T didn’t understand Steve Jobs’s iPhone vision but decided to give him a chance and supported its development. The rest is history. And antitrust officials once believed that AOL would dominate messaging, that Sprint was necessary for cellular competition, and that Meta held an enduring monopoly in social media. Customers disagreed.