2001 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

The 2001 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to George A. Akerlof, A. Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 10 October 2001.

The citation

The citation reads: "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

George A. Akerlof was born in 1940 in New Haven, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley. A. Michael Spence was born in 1943 in Montclair, the United States, and is affiliated with Stanford University, Stanford. Joseph E. Stiglitz was born in 1943 in Gary, the United States, and is affiliated with Columbia University, New York.

Why it matters

Their work explains what happens when one side of a deal knows more than the other, as in the market for second-hand cars, insurance or jobs. Akerlof's famous paper on "lemons" showed how such markets can break down.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895. Strictly, this award is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It was established by the Swedish central bank in 1968, but is presented alongside the Nobel Prizes.