US academics Robert Hall and Michael Woodford won the 2026 Nobel economics prize, formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, for “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Monday. It is the final Nobel awarded this year and carries 12 million Swedish crowns, about $1.2 million.
The laureates built new macroeconomic models that improved the ability to time fiscal and monetary policy so as to dampen damaging swings in the economy. Prize committee chair John Hassler said their work gave central banks and governments “a stable theoretical foundation” for the models now in everyday use, leaving policymakers better equipped for shocks such as energy crises or sudden changes in household consumption. Hall, a Stanford professor, has chaired the NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee, the body that calls US recessions, since 1978.
The economics prize, formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the final Nobel awarded each year and was established by Sweden’s central bank rather than in Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will. Last year’s prize went to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for work on creative destruction and growth.