Robert E Hall and Michael Woodford win 2026 Nobel Prize in Economics
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honoured the two economists for a model built to keep economies stable and help governments and central banks handle crises.
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The Nobel Prize in Economics this year has been awarded to two economists, Robert E Hall and Michael Woodford. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the names for the 2026 honour in Stockholm, the Swedish capital.
The two are being recognised for a model they developed to keep the economy stable.
The Academy said their research has made it easier for governments and central banks to deal with economic crises. Markets see booms and slumps, and the two have built a robust theory to keep these swings in check.
According to the Academy, their model helps explain sudden changes in the economy and also find solutions to them. For instance, the model shows what effect there would be on the economy if oil prices suddenly rose or people cut back on spending.
Chairman of the prize committee John Hassler said the two have laid a foundation that governments and banks across the world are using today. This has made it easier to face things such as an energy crisis or changes in household spending.
Hall is at Stanford University in California. After the announcement, Woodford spoke to the committee from New York. He said it was a very great honour for him and that he had never even thought about it.
Last year, in 2025, the prize went to three economists. They had worked on how new businesses and new ideas help the economy. Their research showed that new discoveries shut down older businesses but improve people's standard of living.
The economics prize is officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Sweden's central bank instituted it in 1968. Alfred Nobel was a 19th-century Swedish scientist who invented dynamite and started the five Nobel Prizes. The economics prize was not among those original five and was added later.
This prize, too, is presented every year on December 10, the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel. The prize amount is 12 million Swedish kronor, about Rs 11.58 crore in Indian money.
The Nobel Prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were announced only last week. With the economics prize now announced, the list of this year's Nobel laureates is complete.
