2011 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 10 October 2011.

The citation

The citation reads: "for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Thomas J. Sargent was born in 1943 in Pasadena, the United States, and is affiliated with New York University, New York. Christopher A. Sims was born in 1942 in Washington, D.C., the United States, and is affiliated with Princeton University, Princeton.

Why it matters

Sargent and Sims developed methods to show how economic policy, such as changes in interest rates, affects the wider economy, and how expectations shape the outcome.

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.