Why are so many people unemployed at the same time that there are a large number of job openings? How can economic policy affect unemployment? This year’s Laureates have developed a theory which can be used to answer these questions. This theory is also applicable to markets other than the...

Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009 compiled by the Economic Sciences Prize Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Traditionally, economic theory has by and large been a theory of markets or, more precisely, about market prices. However, there are at least two reasons why economic science should extend beyond price theory. First, markets do not function properly unless suitable contracts can be formulated...

Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009 compiled by the Economic Sciences Prize Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

I was born on December 18, 1951 in the New York City borough of Queens. My parents, Ernest and Lillian, were both public high school teachers of a subject that is probably no longer taught, called Secretarial Studies, which focused on typing and taking dictation via two methods of shorthand...

Interview conducted on 6 December 2013.

My grandfather, Harlow Shapley, was a noted astronomer. He worked at the 100-inch telescope on Mt. Wilson in Pasadena, California, where he did some important work, most notably determining that the sun was not located at the center of the galaxy, but rather, out on the fringes. His first three...

For decades, my research was driven by outstanding problems in macroeconomics: mainly growth theory and employment theory. Then, around 1990, my research turned to the study of economic systems and my development as an economist took on added dimensions. This biography will start with my student...

Nobel Prize lecture.

Interview with the 2002 Laureates in Economics, Daniel Kahneman and Vernon L. Smith, December 12, 2002. Interviewers are Professor Karl-Gustaf Loefgren and Dr Anne-Sophie Crepin.