- 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics
Intro
American economist. He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2004, sharing the award with Finn E. Kydland, "for their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles".
Education and Work Experience
1962-1967, Swarthmore College, B.A., Mathematics; Case-Western Reserve University, M.S., Operations Research; Carnegie-Mellon University, Ph.D., Economics
1980-2003, Professor of Department of Economics, University of Minnesota
2003-Present, Professor and W. P. Carey Chair, Department of Economics, Arizona State University
2009-Present, Director of Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency, Arizona State University
Honors and Awards
1980, Fellow of the American Econometric Society
1992, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2004, Nobel Prize in Economics
2008, Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Major Academic Achievements
The Research Papers in Economics project ranked him as the 19th most influential economist in the world as of August 2012 based on his academic contributions. He is a major figure in macroeconomics, especially the theories of business cycles and general equilibrium. In his "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," published in 1977 with Finn E. Kydland, he analyzed whether central banks should have strict numerical targets or be allowed to use their discretion in setting monetary policy. He is also well known for his work on the Hodrick- Prescott filter, used to smooth fluctuations in a time series.