U.S. Profs Win Economics Nobel
Finn E. Kydland and Edward C. Prescott won the 2004 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday for their work in determining the consistency of economic policy and the driving force behind business cycles worldwide.
The 60-year-old Kydland, of Norway, teaches at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the University of California at Santa Barbara, while Prescott, 63, is at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., and part of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minn.
According to his university Web site, Kydland is also a research associate for the Federal Reserve Banks of Dallas and Cleveland. His research interests are business cycles, monetary and fiscal policy, and labor economics, and he has received research awards in the past from the Econometric Society, the Hoover Institution and Carnegie Mellon.
"Edward Prescott is most deserving of this highly prestigious honor," said ASU President Michael M. Crow on the school's Web site. "He is a man of great intellect, drive and commitment, who always puts others — particularly students — first. We are immensely proud to have Ed at ASU and we hope this is the beginning of many Nobel Prize winners coming out of this great institution."
The pair received Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their work that showed that driving forces behind business cycle fluctuations and the design of economic policy are key areas in macroeconomic research.
Kydland and Prescott, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said, made fundamental contributions to macroeconomic analysis and the practice of monetary and fiscal policy in many countries.
This year's prize is worth $1.3 million.
Past awards have recognized research on topics ranging from poverty and famine to how multinational corporations reap profits, and theories on how people choose jobs and the welfare losses caused by environmental catastrophes.
Prescott is the fifth American to receive the economics award since 2000.
Even the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has said the United States is a driving force, in part because of the money spent for research.
Last year's winners were American Robert F. Engle and Briton Clive W.J. Granger for developing statistical tools that improved the forecasting of rates of economic growth, interest rates and stock prices.
Past awards have recognized research on topics ranging from poverty and famine to how multinational corporations reap profits, and theories on how people choose jobs and the welfare losses caused by environmental catastrophes.
The economics prize is the only award not established in the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. The medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace prizes were first awarded in 1901, while the economics prize was set up separately by the Swedish central bank in 1968.
This year's Nobel Prize announcements began Oct. 4 with the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine going to Americans Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck for their work on the sense of smell. Last Tuesday, Americans David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek won the physics prize for their explanation of the force that binds particles inside the atomic nucleus.
The chemistry prize was awarded Wednesday to Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko and American Irwin Rose for their work in discovering a process that lets cells destroy unwanted proteins. On Thursday, Austrian feminist writer Elfriede Jelinek won the Nobel Prize in literature.
Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her work as leader of the Green Belt Movement, which has sought to empower women, better the environment and fight corruption in Africa for almost 30 years.
The Nobel prizes, which each include a $1.3 million cash award, are presented Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of their founder, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. The peace prize is awarded in Oslo, and the other Nobel prizes are presented in the Swedish capital, Stockholm.