Angus Deaton (b. 1945)

Who They Were

Angus Deaton (born 1945) is a British-American economist who was born in Scotland and spent much of his career at Princeton University. Working over several decades in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, he became known for combining careful measurement of household data with economic theory to study how people consume, save, and experience wellbeing. His research drew heavily on detailed surveys of households in both rich and poor countries. In 2015 he was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare. Beyond his technical work, he became a prominent voice on the measurement of living standards and on questions of global poverty and health, writing for wide audiences as well as academic ones.

Key Contributions

Deaton's work connected individual choices about spending and saving to broad questions of economic development and welfare. Early in his career he helped develop new ways of modelling how households divide their budgets across goods, improving how economists estimate demand. He later argued that understanding poverty and development requires close attention to what individuals and households actually consume, rather than relying only on aggregate national figures. His 2015 Nobel citation recognised his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare. He also worked extensively on measuring wellbeing and health across countries and over time. His emphasis on rigorous measurement and on the gap between averages and the experience of the poor has been widely influential in development economics and in debates about how to track living standards.

On EconRecall

British-American economist awarded the 2015 Nobel for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare. Play the games that feature Angus Deaton:

• Nobel Laureate Timeline