GUWAHATI: US economists Robert Hall and Michael Woodford have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their work on the microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Monday, October 12.
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The award, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, carries a prize amount of 12 million Swedish kronor (approximately $1.2 million).
Announcing the award, the Nobel Prize committee said the economists demonstrated how economic models could be rebuilt to improve stabilisation policies. Instead of relying on statistical relationships between macroeconomic variables such as inflation, production and consumption, they developed models based on microeconomic foundations.
Their work contributed to the development of macroeconomic models that help governments and central banks design more effective fiscal and monetary policies to reduce the impact of economic fluctuations.
“The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world,” John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said in a statement.
Hassler added that the models have improved economists’ ability to respond to economic shocks, including energy crises and sudden changes in household consumption.
The economics prize is not among the original five Nobel Prizes established under Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will. It was instituted by Sweden’s central bank in 1968 and first awarded in 1969.
The majority of previous recipients have been from the United States. Only three women have received the economics prize, with Claudia Goldin most recently winning in 2023 for her research on the role of gender in pay and employment patterns in the United States.
