2020 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 12 October 2020.

The citation

The citation reads: "for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Paul R. Milgrom was born in 1948 in Detroit, the United States, and is affiliated with Stanford University, Stanford. Robert B. Wilson was born in 1937 in Geneva, the United States, and is affiliated with Stanford University, Stanford.

Why it matters

Milgrom and Wilson designed new types of auction used to sell radio frequencies and other goods that are hard to value.

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.