Americans Thomas Sargent of New York University and Christopher A. Sims of Princeton University have won the Nobel Prize in economics.
In awarding the $1.5 million prize, with the formal title the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the researchers "for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy."
Sargent and Sims, both 68, carried out their research independently in the 1970s and '80s, but it is highly relevant today, as world governments and central banks seek ways to steer their economies away from another recession.
The two economists take different approaches to macroeconomics, with Sargent focusing on analyzing the effects of broad economic policy changes, while Sims has worked to identify and measure the effects of "temporary and unexpected changes," such as fluctuations in interest rates and deficit, according to the prize committee.
Sargent and Sims "have independently developed complimentary methods that make it possible to evaluate policy and trace effects over time,"
