American-born economists Robert Hall and Michael Woodford have won the 2026 Nobel economics prize for their work on how monetary and fiscal policy can help stabilise fluctuations in the economy.
Hall is affiliated with Stanford University in California, and Woodford with Columbia University in New York.
The announcement was made in Sweden’s capital Stockholm, with the winners honoured “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”.
“The laureates have helped us smooth out the economy’s peaks and troughs,” the academy said in a statement.
Woodford spoke to the committee by phone on Monday from New York, saying: “It’s a tremendous honour, it’s a surprise.”