List of Nobel Memorial Prize laureates in Economic Sciences facts for kids

The announcement of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Paul Krugman was the winner.

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is a very important award. It's officially called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Most people just call it the Nobel Prize in Economics. This prize celebrates amazing discoveries in economics. The Nobel Foundation helps manage this special award.

The first economics prize was given in 1969. Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen were the first winners. Each person who wins gets a shiny medal, a special diploma, and some money. The amount of money changes over time. The award ceremony happens every year in Stockholm on December 10th. This date marks the day Alfred Nobel passed away.

As of the 2025 awards, 57 Prizes in Economic Sciences have been given. These awards have gone to 99 brilliant individuals. The University of Chicago has had many winners linked to its economics department. Harvard University and MIT have also seen many of their former students win this prize.

Nobel Prize Winners in Economics

Year	Portrait	Laureate	Country	Reason for the Award	Key Ideas
1969		Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973)	Norway	For creating ways to study how economies change over time.	Developed econometrics and economic models.
		Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994)	Netherlands
1970		Paul Samuelson (1915–2009)	United States	For his work on how economies work in both short and long terms.	Advanced economic theory and analysis.
1971		Simon Kuznets (1901–1985)	United States	For his studies on how economies grow and change.	Explained economic growth and social structure.
1972		John Hicks (1904–1989)	United Kingdom	For their important work on how all parts of an economy fit together.	Pioneered general economic balance and welfare theory.
		Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017)	United States
1973		Wassily Leontief (1905–1999)	Soviet Union  United States	For creating a method to see how different industries affect each other.	Developed the input-output economic model.
1974		Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987)	Sweden	For their studies on money, economic ups and downs, and how society and economy are linked.	Analyzed money, economic changes, and social factors.
		Friedrich von Hayek (1899–1992)	Austria  United Kingdom
1975		Leonid Kantorovich (1912–1986)	Soviet Union	For their ideas on how to best use resources in an economy.	Contributed to the theory of resource allocation.
		Tjalling Koopmans (1910–1985)	Netherlands  United States
1976		Milton Friedman (1912–2006)	United States	For his work on how people spend money and the role of money in the economy.	Studied consumption, money, and economic policy.
1977		Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979)	Sweden	For their groundbreaking work on international trade and money movement between countries.	Developed theories of international trade and capital.
		James Meade (1907–1995)	United Kingdom
1978		Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001)	United States	For his studies on how people make decisions in businesses.	Researched decision-making in organizations.
1979		Theodore Schultz (1902–1998)	United States	For their important research on how economies develop, especially in poorer countries.	Pioneered research on economic development.
		W. Arthur Lewis (1915–1991)	Saint Lucia  United Kingdom
1980		Lawrence Klein (1920–2013)	United States	For creating computer models to predict economic changes and policies.	Developed econometric models for forecasting.
1981		James Tobin (1918–2002)	United States	For his analysis of financial markets and their link to spending and jobs.	Analyzed financial markets and their economic impact.
1982		George Stigler (1911–1991)	United States	For his studies on how industries work and the effects of government rules.	Studied industrial structures and market regulation.
1983		Gérard Debreu (1921–2004)	France	For bringing new math methods to economics and refining general economic balance theory.	Integrated new analytical methods into economic theory.
1984		Richard Stone (1913–1991)	United Kingdom	For his work on creating systems to track a country's economic activity.	Made fundamental contributions to national accounts.
1985		Franco Modigliani (1918–2003)	Italy	For his studies on saving money and how financial markets work.	Analyzed saving and financial markets.
1986		James M. Buchanan (1919–2013)	United States	For his ideas on how economic and political decisions are made based on agreements.	Developed constitutional economics.
1987		Robert Solow (1924–2023)	United States	For his important contributions to understanding economic growth.	Contributed to the theory of economic growth.
1988		Maurice Allais (1911–2010)	France	For his early work on how markets function and using resources efficiently.	Pioneered market theory and resource use.
1989		Trygve Haavelmo (1911–1999)	Norway	For clarifying the math behind economic models and analyzing economic structures.	Clarified probability theory in econometrics.
1990		Harry Markowitz (1927–2023)	United States	For their pioneering work on how financial markets operate.	Developed modern portfolio theory and financial economics.
		Merton Miller (1923–2000)
		William F. Sharpe (b. 1934)
1991		Ronald Coase (1910–2013)	United Kingdom	For explaining the importance of transaction costs and property rights in the economy.	Clarified transaction costs and property rights.
1992		Gary Becker (1930–2014)	United States	For applying economic ideas to many aspects of human behavior, even outside markets.	Extended microeconomics to human behavior.
1993		Robert Fogel (1926–2013)	United States	For renewing the study of economic history using economic theory and data.	Applied economic theory to historical change.
		Douglass North (1920–2015)
1994		John Harsanyi (1920–2000)	Hungary  United States	For their pioneering analysis of how people make decisions in strategic situations (game theory).	Analyzed equilibria in non-cooperative games.
		John Forbes Nash Jr. (1928–2015)	United States
		Reinhard Selten (1930–2016)	Germany
1995		Robert Lucas, Jr. (1937–2023)	United States	For developing the idea of "rational expectations" and changing how we understand economic policy.	Developed rational expectations theory.
1996		James Mirrlees (1936–2018)	United Kingdom	For their important work on how incentives work when people have different information.	Contributed to incentive theory under asymmetric information.
		William Vickrey (1914–1996)	Canada  United States
1997		Robert C. Merton (b. 1944)	United States	For creating a new way to figure out the value of financial tools called "derivatives."	Developed methods for valuing financial derivatives.
		Myron Scholes (b. 1941)	Canada  United States
1998		Amartya Sen (b. 1933)	India	For his contributions to understanding how to improve people's well-being in an economy.	Contributed to welfare economics.
1999		Robert Mundell (1932–2021)	Canada	For his analysis of money and tax policies, and ideal currency areas.	Analyzed monetary and fiscal policy.
2000		James Heckman (b. 1944)	United States	For developing ways to analyze specific groups of people in economic studies.	Developed methods for analyzing selective samples.
		Daniel McFadden (b. 1937)		For his work on understanding how people choose between different options.	Developed theories for analyzing discrete choices.
2001		George Akerlof (b. 1940)	United States	For their studies on markets where some people have more information than others.	Analyzed markets with information asymmetry.
		Michael Spence (b. 1943)
		Joseph Stiglitz (b. 1943)
2002		Daniel Kahneman (1934–2024)	Israel  United States	For bringing ideas from psychology into economics, especially about how people make decisions.	Integrated psychology into economic decision-making.
		Vernon L. Smith (b. 1927)	United States	For using lab experiments to study how markets work.	Established experimental economics.
2003		Robert F. Engle (b. 1942)	United States	For methods to analyze economic data where changes happen over time.	Developed methods for analyzing economic time series.
		Clive Granger (1934–2009)	United Kingdom	For methods to analyze economic data with shared trends.	Developed methods for analyzing economic time series.
2004		Finn E. Kydland (b. 1943)	Norway	For their contributions to understanding economic policy and business cycles.	Studied economic policy and business cycles.
		Edward C. Prescott (1940–2022)	United States
2005		Robert Aumann (b. 1930)	United States  Israel	For helping us understand conflict and cooperation using game theory.	Enhanced understanding of conflict and cooperation.
		Thomas Schelling (1921–2016)	United States
2006		Edmund Phelps (b. 1933)	United States	For his analysis of long-term choices in economic policy.	Analyzed intertemporal tradeoffs in macroeconomics.
2007		Leonid Hurwicz (1917–2008)	Poland  United States	For laying the groundwork for "mechanism design theory," which helps create good rules for markets.	Laid foundations of mechanism design theory.
		Eric Maskin (b. 1950)	United States
		Roger Myerson (b. 1951)
2008		Paul Krugman (b. 1953)	United States	For his analysis of trade patterns and where economic activities happen.	Analyzed trade patterns and economic geography.
2009		Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012)	United States	For her analysis of how people manage shared resources.	Analyzed economic governance and common resources.
		Oliver E. Williamson (1932–2020)		For his analysis of how businesses are organized.	Analyzed economic governance and firm boundaries.
2010		Peter Diamond (b. 1940)	United States	For their analysis of markets where buyers and sellers need to search for each other.	Analyzed markets with search frictions.
		Dale T. Mortensen (1939–2014)
		Christopher A. Pissarides (b. 1948)	Cyprus  United Kingdom
2011		Thomas J. Sargent (b. 1943)	United States	For their research on cause and effect in the overall economy.	Researched cause and effect in macroeconomics.
		Christopher A. Sims (b. 1942)
2012		Alvin E. Roth (b. 1951)	United States	For their work on how to create stable ways to match people or things in markets.	Developed theory of stable allocations and market design.
		Lloyd Shapley (1923–2016)
2013		Eugene Fama (b. 1939)	United States	For their studies on how asset prices (like stocks) behave.	Empirically analyzed asset prices.
		Lars Peter Hansen (b. 1952)
		Robert J. Shiller (b. 1946)
2014		Jean Tirole (b. 1953)	France	For his analysis of market power and how to regulate industries.	Analyzed market power and regulation.
2015		Angus Deaton (b. 1945)	United Kingdom  United States	For his analysis of how people spend, poverty, and well-being.	Analyzed consumption, poverty, and welfare.
2016		Oliver Hart (b. 1948)	United Kingdom  United States	For their contributions to understanding how contracts work.	Contributed to contract theory.
		Bengt Holmström (b. 1949)	Finland
2017		Richard Thaler (b. 1945)	United States	For his contributions to understanding how human psychology affects economic decisions.	Contributed to behavioral economics.
2018		William Nordhaus (b. 1941)	United States	For including climate change in long-term economic analysis.	Integrated climate change into macroeconomics.
		Paul Romer (b. 1955)		For including technological innovations in long-term economic analysis.	Integrated technology into macroeconomics.
2019		Abhijit Banerjee (b. 1961)	United States	For their experimental approach to reducing poverty around the world.	Used experiments to alleviate global poverty.
		Esther Duflo (b. 1972)	France  United States
		Michael Kremer (b. 1964)	United States
2020		Paul Milgrom (b. 1948)	United States	For improving how auctions work and inventing new auction types.	Improved auction theory and formats.
		Robert B. Wilson (b. 1937)
2021		David Card (b. 1956)	Canada  United States	For his studies on how the labor market works.	Studied labor economics using natural experiments.
		Joshua Angrist (b. 1960)	United States  Israel	For their methods to figure out cause-and-effect relationships in economics.	Developed methods for analyzing causal relationships.
		Guido Imbens (b. 1963)	United States  Netherlands
2022		Ben Bernanke (b. 1953)	United States	For their research on banks and financial crises.	Researched banks and financial crises.
		Douglas Diamond (b. 1953)
		Philip H. Dybvig (b. 1955)
2023		Claudia Goldin (b. 1946)	United States	For helping us understand women's roles in the job market throughout history.	Analyzed women's labor market outcomes.
2024		Daron Acemoglu (b. 1967)	Turkey  United States	For studying how rules and organizations affect a country's wealth.	How institutions shape economic success.
		Simon Johnson (b. 1963)	United Kingdom  United States
		James A. Robinson (b. 1955)	United Kingdom  United States
2025		Joel Mokyr (b. 1946)	United States  Israel  Netherlands	For finding out what helps economies grow steadily through new technology.	How technology drives sustained growth.
		Philippe Aghion (b. 1956)	France	For their ideas on how new inventions lead to continuous economic growth.	Theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.
		Peter Howitt (b. 1946)	Canada

Nobel Prize Winners by Country

Country	Number of Winners
United States	72
United Kingdom	13
Canada	5
France	5
Israel	4
Netherlands	4
Norway	3
India	2
Soviet Union	2
Sweden	2
Austria	1
Cyprus	1
Finland	1
Germany	1
Hungary	1
Italy	1
Poland	1
Saint Lucia	1
Turkey	1

See also

• List of Nobel laureates