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

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

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is a very important award for people who study economics. It's officially called "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel." This prize is paid for by Sveriges Riksbank, which is Sweden's central bank. Each year, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gives this award to researchers who have made big discoveries in economics.

The first prize was given out in 1969 to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen. Winners receive a special medal, a diploma, and money. For example, in 1969, Frisch and Tinbergen shared 375,000 Swedish Krona (SEK). This amount changes over the years. The award ceremony happens in Stockholm every year on December 10th. This date is important because it's the day Alfred Nobel passed away.

Up to 2023, 55 prizes have been given to 93 different people. The University of Chicago has had the most winners in economics, with 16 people linked to it. Also, Harvard University and MIT have had the most students who earned their PhDs there and later won the prize (13 each). The University of Chicago is close behind with 10. Many winners were also teaching at the University of Chicago when they received the award (15 winners). MIT, Princeton University, and Harvard University each had 8 winners teaching there at the time.

Winners of the Economics Prize

Year	Picture	Winner (birth/death)	Country	Why they won	University where they got their PhD	Main university they worked at	Key ideas (some examples)
1969		Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973)	Norway	"for creating and using models to understand how economies change over time."	University of Oslo	University of Oslo	Frisch–Waugh–Lovell theorem, Conjectural variation
		Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994)	Netherlands		Leiden University	Erasmus University	Econometrics (using math in economics), Economic policy tools
1970		Paul Samuelson (1915–2009)	United States	"for his work that helped develop economic theory and made economic analysis better."	Harvard University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Revealed preference (how choices show preferences), Samuelson condition, Social Welfare Function
1971		Simon Kuznets (1901–1985)	United States	"for explaining economic growth based on facts. This helped us understand how economies and societies develop."	Columbia University	Harvard University	Gross domestic product (GDP), Capital formation, Kuznets curve
1972		John Hicks (1904–1989)	United Kingdom	"for their early work on how all parts of an economy balance out, and on welfare economics."	University of Oxford	University of Oxford	IS–LM model, Hicksian demand function
		Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017)	United States		Columbia University	Harvard University	Fundamental theorems of welfare economics, Arrow's impossibility theorem
1973		Wassily Leontief (1905–1999)	Soviet Union  United States	"for creating the input-output method and using it to solve important economic problems."	University of Berlin	Harvard University	Input–output model, Leontief paradox
1974		Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987)	Sweden	"for their early work on money and economic ups and downs. They also looked at how economic, social, and other factors are connected."	Stockholm University	Stockholm University	Circular cumulative causation
		Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992)	Austria  United Kingdom		University of Vienna	London School of Economics University of Chicago	Austrian business cycle theory, Economic calculation problem
1975		Leonid Kantorovich (1912–1986)	Soviet Union	"for their ideas on how to best use resources."	Leningrad State University	Novosibirsk State University	Linear programming
		Tjalling Koopmans (1910–1985)	Netherlands  United States		University of Leiden	University of Chicago Yale University	Linear programming
1976		Milton Friedman (1912–2006)	United States	"for his work on how people spend money, the history and theory of money, and showing how hard it is to keep the economy stable."	Columbia University	University of Chicago	Monetarism, Permanent income hypothesis
1977		Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979)	Sweden	"for their important work on international trade and how money moves between countries."	Stockholm University	Stockholm School of Economics	Heckscher–Ohlin model
		James Meade (1907–1995)	United Kingdom		University of Cambridge	University of Cambridge	Nominal income target
1978		Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001)	United States	"for his early research into how people make decisions inside economic groups."	University of Chicago	Carnegie Mellon University	Bounded rationality, satisficing
1979		Theodore Schultz (1902–1998)	United States	"for their early research into economic development, especially for developing countries."	University of Wisconsin-Madison	University of Chicago	Human Capital Theory
		Arthur Lewis (1915–1991)	Saint Lucia  United Kingdom		London School of Economics	Princeton University	Lewis model
1980		Lawrence Klein (1920–2013)	United States	"for creating models that use math to predict economic changes and understand economic policies."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	University of Pennsylvania	Economic forecasting
1981		James Tobin (1918–2002)	United States	"for his study of financial markets and how they relate to spending, jobs, production, and prices."	Harvard University	Yale University	Tobin tax, Tobin's q
1982		George Stigler (1911–1991)	United States	"for his important studies of how industries are set up, how markets work, and why and how public rules affect them."	University of Chicago	University of Chicago	Regulatory capture
1983		Gérard Debreu (1921–2004)	France	"for bringing new math methods into economic theory and clearly explaining the theory of general equilibrium."	University of Paris	University of California, Berkeley	Arrow–Debreu model
1984		Richard Stone (1913–1991)	United Kingdom	"for his key work in creating systems for national accounts. This greatly improved how we analyze economic data."	University of Cambridge	University of Cambridge	National accounts
1985		Franco Modigliani (1918–2003)	Italy	"for his early studies of saving and financial markets."	The New School for Social Research	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Modigliani–Miller theorem, Life-cycle hypothesis
1986		James M. Buchanan (1919–2013)	United States	"for developing the ideas of contracts and rules that form the basis of how economic and political decisions are made."	University of Chicago	George Mason University	Constitutional economics
1987		Robert Solow (1924–2023)	United States	"for his ideas on how economies grow."	Harvard University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Solow–Swan model
1988		Maurice Allais (1911–2010)	France	"for his early work on how markets work and how to use resources well."	École Polytechnique	École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris Paris Nanterre University	OLG model, Allais paradox
1989		Trygve Haavelmo (1911–1999)	Norway	"for making clear the math foundations of econometrics and his studies of how different parts of the economy work together."	University of Oslo	University of Oslo	Balanced budget multiplier
1990		Harry Markowitz (1927–2023)	United States	"for their early work in the theory of financial economics."	University of Chicago	City University of New York	Modern portfolio theory
		Merton Miller (1923–2000)			Johns Hopkins University	Carnegie Mellon University University of Chicago	Modigliani–Miller theorem
		William F. Sharpe (b. 1934)			University of California, Los Angeles	Stanford University	Sharpe Ratio
1991		Ronald Coase (1910–2013)	United Kingdom	"for finding and explaining the importance of transaction costs and property rights for how the economy is set up and how it works."	London School of Economics	University of Chicago London School of Economics	Transaction costs, Coase theorem
1992		Gary Becker (1930–2014)	United States	"for expanding the study of economics to many areas of human behaviour and how people interact, even outside of markets."	University of Chicago	University of Chicago	Human Capital Theory
1993		Robert Fogel (1926–2013)	United States	"for making new research in economic history by using economic ideas and math to explain how economies and rules change."	Johns Hopkins University	University of Chicago	Cliometrics
		Douglass North (1920–2015)			University of California, Berkeley	Washington University in St. Louis
1994		John Harsanyi (1920–2000)	Hungary  United States	"for their early study of balanced situations in non-cooperative games."	Stanford University	University of California, Berkeley	Bayesian game
		John Forbes Nash (1928–2015)	United States		Princeton University	Princeton University	Nash equilibrium
		Reinhard Selten (1930–2016)	Germany		Goethe University Frankfurt	University of Bonn	Experimental economics
1995		Robert Lucas, Jr. (1937–2023)	United States	"for developing and using the idea of rational expectations. This changed macroeconomic analysis and helped us understand economic policy better."	University of Chicago	University of Chicago	Rational expectations, Lucas critique
1996		James Mirrlees (1936–2018)	United Kingdom	"for their important ideas in economics about how people are motivated when they don't have all the information."	University of Cambridge	University of Oxford University of Cambridge	Optimal labor income taxation
		William Vickrey (1914–1996)	Canada  United States		Columbia University	Columbia University	Vickrey auction
1997		Robert C. Merton (b. 1944)	United States	"for a new way to figure out the value of financial derivatives."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Black–Scholes–Merton model
		Myron Scholes (b. 1941)	Canada  United States		University of Chicago	Stanford University	Black–Scholes–Merton model
1998		Amartya Sen (b. 1933)	India	"for his contributions to welfare economics" (how to make society better off).	University of Cambridge	Harvard University University of Cambridge	Human development theory
1999		Robert Mundell (1932–2021)	Canada	"for his study of money and fiscal policy under different exchange rate systems, and his ideas on best currency areas."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Columbia University	Optimum currency area, Mundell–Fleming model
2000		James Heckman (b. 1944)	United States	"for creating theories and methods to analyze specific groups of data."	Princeton University	University of Chicago	Heckman correction
		Daniel McFadden (b. 1937)		"for creating theories and methods to analyze discrete choice (when people choose from a few options)."	University of Minnesota	University of California, Berkeley Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Discrete choice models
2001		George Akerlof (b. 1940)	United States	"for their studies of markets where some people have more information than others."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Georgetown University University of California, Berkeley	Adverse selection (The Market for Lemons)
		Michael Spence (b. 1943)			Harvard University	Harvard University	Signalling theory
		Joseph Stiglitz (b. 1943)			Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Princeton University Columbia University	Screening theory
2002		Daniel Kahneman (1934–2024)	Israel  United States	"for bringing ideas from psychology into economics, especially about how people judge and make decisions when things are uncertain."	University of California, Berkeley	Princeton University University of British Columbia	Behavioral economics, Prospect theory
		Vernon L. Smith (b. 1927)	United States	"for making laboratory experiments a way to study economics, especially for looking at different market systems."	Harvard University	University of Arizona	Experimental economics
2003		Robert F. Engle (b. 1942)	United States	"for methods to analyze economic data that changes how much it varies over time."	Cornell University	University of California, San Diego	ARCH
		Clive Granger (1934–2009)	United Kingdom	"for methods to analyze economic data that move together over time."	University of Nottingham	University of California, San Diego	Cointegration, Granger causality
2004		Finn E. Kydland (b. 1943)	Norway	"for their ideas on how economic policies change over time and what causes business cycles (economic ups and downs)."	Carnegie Mellon University	University of California, Santa Barbara	RBC theory
		Edward C. Prescott (1940–2022)	United States		Carnegie Mellon University	Carnegie Mellon University Arizona State University	Hodrick-Prescott filter
2005		Robert J. Aumann (b. 1930)	United States  Israel	"for helping us understand conflict and cooperation using game theory."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Correlated equilibrium
		Thomas C. Schelling (1921–2016)	United States		Harvard University	Yale University Harvard University	Schelling point
2006		Edmund S. Phelps (b. 1933)	United States	"for his study of how choices today affect the future in macroeconomic policy."	Yale University	Columbia University	Golden Rule savings rate, Natural rate of unemployment
2007		Leonid Hurwicz (1917–2008)	Poland  United States	"for creating the basic ideas of mechanism design theory."	London School of Economics	University of Minnesota Iowa State University	Mechanism design
		Eric S. Maskin (b. 1950)	United States		Harvard University	Harvard University
		Roger Myerson (b. 1951)			Harvard University	Northwestern University
2008		Paul Krugman (b. 1953)	United States	"for his study of trade patterns and where economic activities happen."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Princeton University	New trade theory, New Economic Geography
2009		Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012)	United States	"for her study of how economic groups are managed, especially for shared resources."	University of California, Los Angeles	Indiana University	Institutional Analysis and Development framework
		Oliver E. Williamson (1932–2020)		"for his study of how economic groups are managed, especially the limits of a company."	Carnegie Mellon University	University of Pennsylvania University of California, Berkeley	New institutional economics
2010		Peter A. Diamond (b. 1940)	United States	"for their study of markets where buyers and sellers need to find each other."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Diamond–Mirrlees efficiency theorem
		Dale T. Mortensen (1939–2014)			Carnegie Mellon University	Northwestern University	Matching theory
		Christopher A. Pissarides (b. 1948)	Cyprus  United Kingdom		London School of Economics	London School of Economics	Matching theory
2011		Thomas J. Sargent (b. 1943)	United States	"for their research on cause and effect in the overall economy."	Harvard University	Hoover Institution University of Minnesota	Policy-ineffectiveness proposition
		Christopher A. Sims (b. 1942)			Harvard University	Princeton University	Vector autoregression in macroeconomics
2012		Alvin E. Roth (b. 1951)	United States	"for the theory of stable matches and how to design markets."	Stanford University	Stanford University Harvard University	Stable marriage problem
		Lloyd S. Shapley (1923–2016)			Princeton University	University of California, Los Angeles	Shapley value, Gale–Shapley algorithm
2013		Eugene F. Fama (b. 1939)	United States	"for their research on how asset prices behave."	University of Chicago	University of Chicago	Fama–French three-factor model, efficient-market hypothesis
		Lars Peter Hansen (b. 1952)			University of Minnesota	University of Chicago	Generalized method of moments
		Robert J. Shiller (b. 1946)			Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Yale University	Case–Shiller index
2014		Jean Tirole (b. 1953)	France	"for his study of market power and how to regulate it."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology Toulouse School of Economics	Markov perfect equilibrium, Two-sided market
2015		Angus Deaton (b. 1945)	United Kingdom  United States	"for his study of how people consume, poverty, and well-being."	University of Cambridge	Princeton University	Almost ideal demand system, Household surveys
2016		Oliver Hart (b. 1948)	United Kingdom  United States	"for their important ideas about contract theory."	Princeton University	Harvard University	Moral Hazard, Incomplete contracts
		Bengt Holmström (b. 1949)	Finland		Stanford University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Informativeness Principle
2017		Richard Thaler (b. 1945)	United States	"for his ideas in behavioural economics" (how psychology affects economic decisions).	University of Rochester	Cornell University University of Chicago	Nudge Theory, Mental Accounting
2018		William Nordhaus (b. 1941)	United States	"for adding climate change into long-term economic analysis."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Yale University	DICE model
		Paul Romer (b. 1955)		"for adding new technology ideas into long-term economic analysis."	University of Chicago	New York University	Incorporation of R&D to the Endogenous growth theory
2019		Abhijit Banerjee (b. 1961)	United States	"for their experimental way of helping reduce global poverty."	Harvard University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Use of RCTs in development economics
		Esther Duflo (b. 1972)	France  United States		Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
		Michael Kremer (b. 1964)	United States		Harvard University	Harvard University
2020		Paul Milgrom (b. 1948)	United States	"for making auction theory better and inventing new ways to run auctions."	Stanford University	Stanford University	Simultaneous multiple round auctions (SMRA), Market design
		Robert B. Wilson (b. 1937)			Harvard University	Stanford University	Simultaneous multiple round auctions (SMRA), Common value auction
2021		David Card (b. 1956)	Canada  United States	"for his research on jobs and the economy."	Princeton University	University of California, Berkeley	Natural experiments on labor economics
		Joshua Angrist (b. 1960)	United States  Israel	"for their methods to figure out cause and effect in economics."	Princeton University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Using natural experiments to find cause and effect
		Guido Imbens (b. 1963)	United States  Netherlands		Brown University	Stanford University
2022		Ben Bernanke (b. 1953)	United States	"for research on banks and financial crises."	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Princeton University Brookings Institution	Analysis of the Great Depression
		Douglas Diamond (b. 1953)			Yale University	University of Chicago	Diamond–Dybvig model
		Philip H. Dybvig (b. 1955)			Yale University	Washington University in St. Louis
2023		Claudia Goldin (b. 1946)	United States	"for helping us understand women's roles in the job market."	University of Chicago	Harvard University	Study of women's economic history
2024		Daron Acemoglu (b. 1967)	Turkey  United States	"for studies of how institutions (rules and organizations) are formed and affect how rich a country becomes."	London School of Economics	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
		Simon Johnson (b. 1963)	United Kingdom  United States		Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
		James A. Robinson (b. 1955)	United Kingdom		Yale University	University of Chicago

Universities Where Winners Got Their PhDs

This table shows which universities have produced the most Nobel Prize winners in economics.

University	Country	Number of winners
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States	14 (1980, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2001, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2024) Lawrence Klein, Robert C. Merton, Robert Mundell, Joseph Stiglitz, George Akerlof, Robert J. Aumann, Paul Krugman, Peter A. Diamond, Robert J. Shiller, Jean Tirole, William Nordhaus, Esther Duflo, Ben Bernanke, Simon Johnson
Harvard University	United States	13 (1970, 1981, 1987, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2007, 2011, 2011, 2019, 2019, 2020) Paul Samuelson, James Tobin, Robert Solow, Michael Spence, Vernon L. Smith, Thomas C. Schelling, Roger Myerson, Eric S. Maskin, Thomas J. Sargent, Christopher A. Sims, Abhijit Banerjee, Michael Kremer, Robert B. Wilson
University of Chicago	United States	10 (1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1992.1995, 1997, 2013, 2018, 2023) Herbert A. Simon, George Stigler, James M. Buchanan, Harry Markowitz, Gary Becker, Robert Lucas, Jr., Myron Scholes, Eugene F. Fama, Paul Romer, Claudia Goldin
Princeton University	United States	6 (1994, 2000, 2012, 2016, 2021, 2021) John Forbes Nash, James Heckman, Lloyd S. Shapley, Oliver Hart, David Card, Joshua Angrist
London School of Economics	United Kingdom	5 (1979, 1992, 2007, 2010, 2024) C. A. Pissarides, L. Hurwicz, R. Coase, W. A. Lewis, Daron Acemoglu
University of Cambridge	United Kingdom	5 (1977, 1984, 1996, 1998, 2015) James Meade, Richard Stone, James Mirrlees, Amartya Sen, Angus Deaton
Carnegie Mellon University	United States	4 (2004, 2004, 2009, 2010) Finn E. Kydland, Edward C. Prescott, Dale T. Mortensen
Columbia University	United States	4 (1971, 1972, 1976, 1996) William Vickrey, Milton Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, Simon Kuznets
Stanford University	United States	4 (1994, 2012, 2016, 2020) Paul Milgrom, Bengt Holmström, Alvin E. Roth, John Harsanyi
Yale University	United States	4 (2006, 2022, 2022, 2024) Edmund S. Phelps, Douglas Diamond, Philip H. Dybvig, James A. Robinson
Johns Hopkins University	United States	2 (1990, 1993) Merton Miller, Robert Fogel
Leiden University	Netherlands	2 (1969, 1975) Jan Tinbergen, Tjalling Koopmans
Stockholm University	Sweden	2 (1974, 1977) Gunnar Myrdal, Bertil Ohlin
University of California, Berkeley	United States	2 (1993, 2002) Douglass North, Daniel Kahneman
University of California, Los Angeles	United States	2 (1990, 2009) William F. Sharpe, Elinor Ostrom
University of Minnesota	United States	2 (2000, 2013) Daniel McFadden, Lars Peter Hansen
University of Oslo	Norway	2 (1969, 1989) Ragnar Frisch, Trygve Haavelmo
Brown University	United States	1 (2021) Guido Imbens
Cornell University	United States	1 (2003) Robert F. Engle
École Polytechnique	France	1 (1988) Maurice Allais
Goethe University Frankfurt	Germany	1 (1994) Reinhard Selten
Leningrad State University	Soviet Union	1 (1975) Leonid Kantorovich
The New School for Social Research	United States	1 (1985) Franco Modigliani
University of Berlin	Germany	1 (1973) Wassily Leontief
University of Nottingham	United Kingdom	1 (2003) Clive Granger
University of Oxford	United Kingdom	1 (1972) John Hicks
University of Paris	France	1 (1983) Gérard Debreu
University of Rochester	United States	1 (2017) Richard Thaler
University of Vienna	Austria	1 (1974) Friedrich Hayek
University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States	1 (1979) Theodore Schultz

Winners by Country

This table shows how many Nobel Prize winners in economics come from each country.

Country	Number of winners
United States	70
United Kingdom	13
Canada	4
France	4
Israel	3
Netherlands	3
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

In Spanish: Anexo:Ganadores del Premio de Economía Conmemorativo de Alfred Nobel para niños

• List of Nobel laureates