Nobel Prize

I was born in Superior, Wisconsin on September 27, 1932 as the second child of Scott and Lucille Williamson. Both of my parents had been high school teachers but my father left teaching when he married my mother and joined my grandfather, Oliver E. Dunn, in the family real estate business. My father was a…

Telephone interview, October 2015 “You have to understand what makes people tick” Telephone interview with Professor Angus Deaton following the award of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, 12 October 2015. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Chief…

I was born in 1937, in Yakima, Washington, the oldest child of Robert Emerson Lucas and Jane Templeton Lucas. My sister Jenepher was born in 1939 and my brother Peter in 1940. My parents had moved to Yakima from Seattle, to open a small restaurant, The Lucas Ice Creamery. The restaurant was a casualty of…

English 10 October 1995 has decided to award the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, 1995, to Professor Robert E. Lucas, Jr., University of Chicago, USA, for having developed and applied the hypothesis of rational expectations, and thereby having transformed macroeconomic analysis and deepened our understanding of economic policy.…

The Scientific Contributions of Robert E. Lucas, Jr. October 1995 During the 1970s macroeconomics was rapidly and thoroughly transformed: the rational expectations hypothesis was developed and applied, an equilibrium theory of business cycles emerged, and the problems in macroeconometric evaluation of economic policy and their solutions were clarified. This evolution is mostly due to the…

Swedish har beslutat utdela Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne år 1995 till Professor Robert E. Lucas, Jr., University of Chicago, USA för att ha utvecklat och tillämpat hypotesen om rationella förväntningar och i grunden förändrat makroekonomisk analys och synen på ekonomisk politik. Rationella förväntningar har revolutionerat makroekonomisk analys och synen…

This text is adapted from “Leonid Hurwicz’s Game”, by Ann Bauer. Reprinted with permission from the author and Twin Cities Business magazine. Professor Hurwicz says that he is simply a product of his history. He knows from experience how circumstances change when people don’t abide by the rules of the game. “I cannot tell you…

Swedish 10 oktober 2016 har beslutat utdela Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne 2016 till Oliver Hart Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA och Bengt Holmström Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA ”för deras bidrag till kontraktsteorin” Kontrakt i långt och kort Den moderna ekonomin hålls samman av oräkneliga kontrakt. De…

English 10 October 2016 has decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2016 to Oliver Hart Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA and Bengt Holmström Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA “for their contributions to contract theory” The long and the short of contracts Modern economies are…

The Prize in Economic Sciences 2016 Contracts are essential to the functioning of modern societies. Oliver Hart’s and Bengt Holmström’s research sheds light on how contracts help us deal with conflicting interests. Contract theory Contracts help us to be cooperative and trusting when we may otherwise be disobliging and distrusting. As employees, we have employment…