Economics Nobel 2026 – Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford

12-10-2026 · English

Topics: Awards · 12 October 2026 Current Affairs (UPSC / TNPSC / SSC / RRB)

News

On 12 Oct 2026 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced in Stockholm that the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences (Economics Nobel) goes to Robert E. Hall (Stanford University) and Michael Woodford (Columbia University), both of the USA, 'for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation'. The prize of SEK 12 million is shared equally.

Key facts

Background

• The economics prize is not in Alfred Nobel's will; Sweden's central bank (Sveriges Riksbank) founded it in 1968; the first prize (1969) went to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen.
• Indian-origin laureates: Amartya Sen (1998 – welfare economics), Abhijit Banerjee (2019 – with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, on global poverty). Women: Elinor Ostrom (2009), Esther Duflo (2019), Claudia Goldin (2023).
• Macroeconomics deals with national output, inflation and jobs; microeconomics with individual and firm decisions. India's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC, 2016) sets the repo rate; the inflation target is 4% (±2%).

Tamil Nadu link: Nobel laureates with Tamil roots – C.V. Raman (Physics 1930, born at Thiruvanaikaval, Tiruchirappalli), S. Chandrasekhar (Physics 1983), Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Chemistry 2009, Chidambaram). Navi Pillay, the 2026 Peace laureate, is also of Tamil descent.

Source: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (kva.se), Al Jazeera, The Tribune (ANI), 12 Oct 2026

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