Nobel economics prize awarded to Robert Hall and Michael ⁠Woodford

The Swedish academy says the academics’ models are ‘now used by central banks and ​governments around the world’.

Robert Hall and Michael Woodford are announced as the laureates of the 2026 Nobel Prize in economics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, October 12, 2026 [Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via Reuters]

The ⁠2026 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to US academics Robert Hall and Michael ⁠Woodford for their work on how monetary and fiscal policy can help stabilise fluctuations in the economy, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The winners of the prestigious award, formally known ⁠as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel and the final prize to be given out this year, were announced on Monday.

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The two laureates developed new macroeconomic models that improve people’s ability to implement effective stabilisation policies, enabling fiscal and monetary policy measures that can reduce damaging swings in the economy.

“The laureates’ work has provided us ‌with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world,” John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said in a statement.

“With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume.”

During the oil crises in the 1970s, the existing Keynesian models used to determine when and how measures should be implemented to tackle recessions or other economic fluctuations stopped working. Hall and Woodford then developed new tools to understand what policy responses could be the most effective.

“Rather than basing the models on statistical links between macroeconomic variables, such as inflation, production and consumption, they chose to build them on a microeconomic foundation,” the academy said. “This encompasses an understanding of how the total mass of individual households and businesses affect the economy through their actions.”

The economics prize, first awarded ⁠in 1969, is not part of the five original awards ⁠created in the 1895 will of industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, but was instead established by Sweden’s central bank.

The majority of previous laureates have been from the United States. Only three women have ⁠ever won, most recently Claudia Goldin in 2023 for her work on how gender has affected pay and employment over time ⁠in the US.

Last year’s winners – Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt – won for ‌their work on “creative destruction” and how new technology and production methods can boost growth and living standards.

Like the other Nobel awards, the economics prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal, and a $1.2m cheque.

The Nobel prizes for medicine , physics, chemistry, literature and peace were announced last ‌week, with South African jurist Navi Pillay and Canadian writer Anne Carson among the winners.

瑞典科学院表示，学者们的模型“现在已被世界各地的中央银行和政府所采用”。

2026年10月12日，在瑞典斯德哥尔摩的瑞典皇家科学院，罗伯特·霍尔和迈克尔·伍德福德被宣布为2026年诺贝尔经济学奖得主。[Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via Reuters]

据瑞典皇家科学院称，2026 年诺贝尔经济学奖授予美国学者罗伯特·霍尔和迈克尔·伍德福德，以表彰他们在货币和财政政策如何帮助稳定经济波动方面的工作。

这项享有盛誉的奖项，正式名称为“瑞典国家银行纪念阿尔弗雷德·诺贝尔经济学奖”，是今年颁发的最后一个奖项，获奖者于周一公布。

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这两位获奖者开发了新的宏观经济模型，提高了人们实施有效稳定政策的能力，从而能够采取财政和货币政策措施，减少经济中有害的波动。

“获奖者的研究成果为我们提供了稳定的理论基础，这些模型现在被世界各地的中央银行和政府所使用，”经济学奖委员会主席约翰·哈斯勒在一份声明中表示。

“有了它们，我们就能更好地应对经济冲击，例如能源危机或家庭消费量的突然变化。”

在20世纪70年代的石油危机期间，以往用于确定何时以及如何采取措施应对经济衰退或其他经济波动的凯恩斯主义模型不再适用。随后，霍尔和伍德福德开发了新的工具，以了解哪些政策应对措施最为有效。

“他们没有选择基于通货膨胀、生产和消费等宏观经济变量之间的统计联系来构建模型，而是选择以微观经济学为基础，”该学院表示。“这包括理解个体家庭和企业的整体行为如何影响经济。”

诺贝尔经济学奖于 1969 年首次颁发，它并非实业家兼炸药发明家阿尔弗雷德·诺贝尔在 1895 年遗嘱中设立的五个原始奖项之一，而是由瑞典中央银行设立的。

此前的获奖者大多来自美国。只有三位女性获得过该奖项，最近一位是克劳迪娅·戈尔丁，她在2023年获奖，以表彰她对性别如何随着时间的推移影响美国薪酬和就业的研究。

去年的获奖者——乔尔·莫基尔、菲利普·阿吉翁和彼得·豪伊特——因其在“创造性破坏”方面的工作以及新技术和生产方法如何促进增长和生活水平而获奖。

与其他诺贝尔奖一样，经济学奖包括一张证书、一枚金质奖章和一张 120 万美元的支票。

上周公布了诺贝尔医学奖、物理学奖、化学奖、文学奖和和平奖的获奖名单，南非法学家纳维·皮莱和加拿大作家安妮·卡森等获奖。