Tuesday 11 October 2016

Nobel Prize for Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström

The 2016 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (aka Nobel Prize in Economics) has been awarded to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström, "for their contributions to contract theory". Excellent coverage of their contributions to economics are provided by Tyler Cowen (here for Hart, and here for Holmström). See also here for a more accessible summary of their work (also by Cowen), as well as this piece by Noah Smith. Note that much of their work is quite theoretical, and there are definite links to Jean Tirole (who won the prize in 2014).

My ECON100 and ECON110 students might recognise some of their work in our discussions of moral hazard, principal-agent problems, and performance pay. I just finished talking in the final ECON110 lecture about the links to the work of Nobel laureates in that paper - I wish I'd checked my emails sooner, and I could have noted this award in that lecture!

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