The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

What Is The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences?

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the highest honor in economics, but it is not one of the original prizes established by Alfred Nobel's 1895 will. It was endowed by Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden's central bank and the world's oldest, in 1968 to mark its 300th anniversary, and it was awarded for the first time in 1969. Like the original prizes, its laureates are selected each year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Because it is administered alongside Nobel's prizes and awarded at the same ceremony, it is commonly called the Nobel Prize in economics.

Why It Matters

The prize matters both as a marker of the field's leading ideas and as a frequent source of confusion about its origins. Its first award in 1969 went jointly to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen for developing dynamic models of economic processes; Paul Samuelson became the first American laureate in 1970, and Elinor Ostrom the first woman in 2009. Like the other prizes, since 1974 it is not awarded posthumously, which is why Amos Tversky could not share Daniel Kahneman's 2002 award. Tracing the laureates, from Friedman and Hayek to Nash, Kahneman, and Thaler, offers a compact history of modern economic thought and the debates that shaped it.