2022 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

The 2022 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 10 October 2011.

The citation

The citation reads: "for research on banks and financial crises". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Ben Bernanke was born in 1953 in Augusta, the United States, and is affiliated with The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.. Douglas Diamond was born in 1953 in Chicago, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of Chicago, Chicago. Philip Dybvig was born in 1955 in Gainesville, the United States, and is affiliated with Washington University, St. Louis.

Why it matters

Their research showed why banks are important and why they can collapse. Bernanke, a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, studied the banking failures of the Great Depression.

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.