US duo William Nordhaus and Paul Romer win Nobel Economics Prize

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STOCKHOLM, Oct 8, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – US economists William Nordhaus and Paul
Romer on Monday shared the 2018 Nobel Economics Prize for integrating
innovation and climate with economic growth, the jury said.

Nordhaus, a professor at Yale University, and Romer, a former World Bank
chief economist now at New York University’s Stern School of Business, have
addressed “some of our time’s most basic and pressing questions about how we
create long-term sustained and sustainable growth,” the Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences said in a statement.

It said the pair have “significantly broadened the scope of economic
analysis by constructing models that explain how the market economy interacts
with nature and knowledge.”

Nordhaus, 77, was specifically honoured for “integrating climate change
into long-run macroeconomic analysis.”

The 62-year-old Romer meanwhile won for “integrating technological
innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis.”

Both have been tipped as frontrunners for the Nobel in recent years.

The pair will share the nine million Swedish kronor (about $1.01 million or
860,000-euro) prize.

Last year, the honour went to US economist Richard Thaler, a co-founder of
the so-called “nudge” theory, which demonstrates how people can be persuaded
to make decisions that leave them healthier and happier.

Unlike the other Nobel prizes which were created in Swedish inventor and
philanthropist Alfred Nobel’s last will and testament and first awarded in
1901, the economics prize was created by the Swedish central bank, the
Riksbank,in 1968 to mark its tricentenary. It was first awarded in 1969.

The Nobel, which also consists of a diploma and a gold medal, will be
presented at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.

The Nobel economics prize wraps up the 2018 awards season, notable this
year for the lack of a literature prize, postponed by a year for the first
time in 70 years over a rape scandal that came to light as part of the #MeToo
movement.

Last week, after the prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry were
announced, the most highly-anticipated Nobel, that for peace, went to Yazidi
women’s campaigner Nadia Murad and Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege for their
work in fighting sexual violence in conflicts around the world.