Nobel Prizes 2016: Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström Wins the Nobel Economics Prize for “Contract Theory”

Among the Nobel Prize announcements, another announcement has been made on Monday in the field of Economics. And The Nobel Economics Prize 2016 was awarded to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström for “their contributions to contract theory” on Monday.

Hart, born in 1948, is an economics professor at Harvard University in the United States, while Holmstrom is a professor of economics and management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The pair will share the eight million kronor (826,000 euros, $924,000) prize. 

Here is the official confirmation tweet from the official tweet handle of The Nobel Prize 

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says their theories “are valuable to the understanding of real-life contracts and institutions, as well as potential pitfalls in contract design.”

Their groundbreaking work has laid “an intellectual foundation” for designing policies and institutions in many areas, from bankruptcy legislation to political constitutions.

Check Out the Video of the announcement Here

However, the previous speculation had claimed the World Bank’s new chief economist was among those tipped to win the Nobel Economics Prize on Monday, as the awards season moves into the second week.

The committee has a tendency to honour pairs or trios of economists, although last year a single laureate, US-British researcher Angus Deaton, was chosen for his groundbreaking work on poverty.

The economics prize is unique among the Nobel awards in that it was created by the Swedish central bank in 1968.

Nobel Prizes 2016: Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström Wins the Nobel Economics Prize for "Contract Theory"

 

The economics prize is the fifth of the six Nobel prizes to be announced this year. Last week, the awards for medicine, physics, and chemistry were announced, as well as the peace prize, which went to Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end a half-century war with the FARC rebels.

The final prize, for literature, will be announced Thursday. For that award, the Swedish Academy could tap a superstar novelist such as Philip Roth of the US or Haruki Murakami of Japan, or a lesser-known writer such as Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse or Syrian poet Adonis.

The Nobel prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and cheque for eight million Swedish kronor (828,000 euros, $928,000), which the laureates will receive at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December.

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