2013 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

The 2013 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert J. Shiller. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 14 October 2013.

The citation

The citation reads: "for their empirical analysis of asset prices". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Eugene F. Fama was born in 1939 in Boston, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of Chicago, Chicago. Lars Peter Hansen was born in 1952 in Urbana, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of Chicago, Chicago. Robert J. Shiller was born in 1946 in Detroit, the United States, and is affiliated with Yale University, New Haven.

Why it matters

Fama showed that share prices are hard to predict in the short term, while Shiller found they can be predicted over longer periods. Hansen developed statistical methods to test such theories.

The prize

The prize is worth 8 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.