Sweden’s central bank added the economics prize in 1968 as a memorial to Nobel.
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Scottish economist Angus Deaton has won the Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences for “his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Monday.
The announcement concludes this year’s presentations of Nobel winners.
Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896.
Members of the public often point out that economists have been unreliable in predicting financial crises and economic downturns, and that so far a remedy against mass unemployment remains elusive.
Last year’s award went to Frenchman Jean Tirole of the University of Toulouse for his work on how governments can regulate industries from banking to telecommunications.
Other influential thinkers included in speculation ahead of the announcement are John A List of the University of Chicago for creating field experiments to test economic theories and Charles Manski of Northwestern University for his research in social policy analysis and rational choice theory.
According to Johan Schuck, a journalist at Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, behavioural economics “is due to be honoured”, with Switzerland’s Ernst Fehr seen as a possible laureate.
A British economist is one of the top potential names to win Sweden’s Nobel Prize in Economics when it is announced in Stockholm early on Monday afternoon local time.
However, their work may be too recent to be considered for the prize, Schuck noted.
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Deaton will receive his prize at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the prizes’ creator, Swedish scientist and philanthropist Alfred Nobel.
