The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

Nobel Memorial Prize Winners in Economic Science

The Nobel Prize was established by the will of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), the Swedish chemist who invented dynamite, to recognize humanitarian endeavors in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. A prize in economics was introduced in 1969 after the Bank of Sweden donated funds for its monetary awards. In 1992 the economic prize carried a cash award of $1.2 million.

Nominations for the prize are solicited through invitation only, with over a thousand invitations per prize category, and require a written statement in support of the nomination. Committees then evaluate the nominees and make their recommendations to the appropriate prize-awarding organization. All the selection work for the Nobel Prize is conducted in secrecy. In economics the prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. To date, thirty-two Americans have been honored with the prize.

The following individuals were awarded the Nobel Prize in economics:

Nobel Memorial Prize Winners in Economic Science
1969: Ragnar Frisch, Jan Tinbergen
1970: Paul Samuelson
1971: Simon Kuznets
1972: Kenneth Arrow, John Hicks
1973: Wassily Leontief
1974: Friedrich A. Hayek, Gunnar Myrdal
1975: Leonid Kantorovich, Tjalling C. Koopmans
1976: Milton Friedman
1977: James Meade, Bertil Ohlin
1978: Herbert Simon
1979: W. Arthur Lewis, Theodore Schultz
1980: Lawrence Klein
1981: James Tobin
1982: George Stigler
1983: Gerard Debreu
1984: Richard Stone
1985: Franco Modigliani
1986: James M. Buchanan
1987: Robert Solow
1988: Maurice Allais
1989: Trygve Haavelmo
1990: Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller, William Sharpe
1991: Ronald H. Coase
1992: Gary S. Becker
1993: Robert W. Fogel, Douglass C. North
1994: John C. Harsanyi, John F. Nash Jr., Reinhard Selten
1995: Robert E. Lucas Jr.
1996: James A. Mirrlees, William Vickrey
1997: Robert C. Merton, Myron S. Scholes
1998: Amartya Sen
1999: Robert A. Mundell
2000: James J. Heckman, Daniel L. McFadden
2001: George A. Akerlof, A. Michael Spence, Joseph E. Stiglitz
2002: Daniel Kahneman, Vernon L. Smith
2003: Robert F. Engle, Clive W. J. Granger
2004: Finn E. Kydland, Edward C. Prescott
2005: Robert J. Aumann, Thomas C. Schelling
2006: Edmund S. Phelps

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