The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

Established 1968; first awarded 1969

Economics — the prize that is not quite a Nobel

Formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, endowed by the Swedish central bank in 1968 to mark its three hundredth anniversary and first awarded in 1969. It is not one of the five prizes established in Alfred Nobel's will of 1895 and is not paid for out of his bequest, but it is selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences under the same rules and presented at the same Stockholm ceremony on 10 December, which is why it is universally called a Nobel Prize and why purists, including members of the Nobel family, object. Three of its laureates have been women.

How to spot them

▸Endowed in 1968 by a central bank celebrating its three hundredth anniversary
▸Not mentioned in the 1895 will; chosen by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences all the same
▸Presented at the same Stockholm ceremony, on 10 December
▸Ostrom in 2009, Duflo in 2019, Goldin in 2023 — the only women so far

Key facts

The one Stockholm award missing from the 1895 will that founded the others, funded by a central bank instead of that bequest (1968)

Endowed by Sveriges Riksbank in 1968 for its 300th anniversary; the bank pays, the Academy chooses

First awarded in 1969, jointly to a Norwegian and a Dutchman for econometric models (1969)

Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen

In 1974 it went jointly to two men of diametrically opposed politics, an Austrian liberal and a Swedish social democrat (1974)

Friedrich Hayek and Gunnar Myrdal; both afterwards said the award should not exist

Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to receive it, in 2009 (2009)

A political scientist by training, honoured for work on the governance of common resources

Two of its 1997 laureates sat on the board of a hedge fund that collapsed the following year (1998)

Myron Scholes and Robert C. Merton, of Long-Term Capital Management

Claudia Goldin won it alone in 2023 for work on women in the labour market (2023)

Only the third woman to receive it, and the first to be sole recipient

The 2025 award went to three economists for explaining innovation-driven growth and creative destruction (2025)

Joel Mokyr took half; Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt shared the other half

Key ideas

The standing objection is that the prize lends the authority of Nobel's name, and of the physics and chemistry prizes chosen by the same academy, to a discipline whose claims are more contested. Members of the Nobel family have said so publicly, and Hayek said in his 1974 banquet speech that he would have advised against establishing it.
The Academy has quietly broadened what counts as economics: the roll includes a mathematician, a psychologist and a political scientist alongside the economists.
As with the other prizes, it may be shared by at most three people and is not awarded posthumously — rules that have themselves generated arguments about who was left out.

Quick-fire facts

•Its full official title is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
•It was established in 1968 on the Riksbank's 300th anniversary and first awarded in 1969
•It is not one of the prizes named in Alfred Nobel's 1895 will and is funded by the Riksbank, not the Nobel Foundation's endowment
•Laureates are chosen by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the same body that selects the physics and chemistry prizes, and receive their award at the Stockholm ceremony on 10 December
•The first laureates, in 1969, were Ragnar Frisch of Norway and Jan Tinbergen of the Netherlands
•Friedrich Hayek and Gunnar Myrdal shared the 1974 award despite opposed views; Hayek used his banquet speech to say he would have advised against creating the prize
•Three women have won it: Elinor Ostrom (2009), Esther Duflo (2019) and Claudia Goldin (2023)
•Esther Duflo, at 46, is the youngest laureate; Leonid Hurwicz, at 90 in 2007, was the oldest
•Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won in 2002, never took a course in economics
•The 2024 prize went to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson for work on institutions and prosperity
•The 2025 prize went to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for explaining innovation-driven economic growth

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / Nobel Prize Outreach — The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025 Press release of 13 October 2025 naming Mokyr, Aghion and Howitt. Cited without URL (nobelprize.org blocks automated fetching).
American Economic Association — Congratulations to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt