STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Latest on the Nobel prize in economics (all times local):
12:10 p.m.
In awarding the Nobel prize in economics, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences cited William Nordhaus for showing that “the most efficient remedy for problems caused by greenhouse gases is a global scheme of universally imposed carbon taxes.”
A faculty member at Yale University since 1967, Nordhaus’ research has focused on economic growth and natural resources, and the economics of climate change. His economic approaches to global warming include modeling to determine the efficient path for coping with climate change.
He’s also studied wage and price behavior, health economics, augmented national accounting, the political business cycle, productivity, and the “new economy.” His current work on what he calls his “G-Econ project” promises to provide the first comprehensive measures of economic activity at a geophysical scale.
The Swedish Royal Academy said that the work of Paul Romer, who shared the award announced Monday, showed “economic forces govern the willingness of firms to produce new ideas and innovations.”
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11:55 a.m.
Two researchers at American universities have been awarded the Nobel Prize for economics.
Yale University’s William Nordhaus was named for integrating climate change into long term macroeconomic analysis and New York University’s Paul Romer was awarded for factoring technological innovation into macroeconomics.
They will share the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize.
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6:10 a.m.
The award that concludes this year’s series of Nobel prizes came about seven decades after the others.
When Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel established the prizes in his will, economics wasn’t one of the undertakings he wanted honored. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was established by Sweden’s central bank and first given out in 1969.
Whether economics is a genuine science in the sense of the Nobels awarded for accomplishments in medicine, chemistry and physics can be debated; the award often goes to work that has a high level of abstraction.
Last year’s win by American Richard Thaler was unusually accessible to the layman — his work studied the human irrationality that can mess with economic theory.
The 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize will be announced Monday.
