A. Michael Spence
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2001

Born: 30 November 1942, Montclair, NJ, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Prize motivation: "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information."

Contribution: Showed how the able agents may improve the market outcome by taking costly action to signal information to poorly informed recipients. An important example is education as a signal of high individual productivity in the labor market. It is not necessary for education to have intrinsic value. Costly investment in education as such signals high ability.

Prize share: 1/3