MANHATTAN — NYU Economics Professor Thomas J. Sargent has been awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Economics, the organization announced Monday, making him the second Manhattan scholar to earn a Nobel honor this year.
Sargent will share The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2011 with Princeton economist Christopher A. Sims. Both men were chosen "for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy," according to a statement announcing the award.
While Sims’ research has focused on how to analyze the effects of temporary changes in economic policy, Sargent’s has “shown how structural macroeconometrics can be used to analyze permanent changes in economic policy,” the statement said.
The two professors will share a prize of roughly $1.5 million.
Sargent, who teaches at NYU’s Stern School of Business, is the 24th member of the NYU community, including faculty and alumni, to win a Nobel, according to the university’s website.
Biologist Ralph Steinman of the Upper East Side’s Rockefeller University, won this year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine just days after he passed away from pancreatic cancer. Although the award is not normally awarded posthumously, the Nobel Foundation made an exception for Steinman’s unprecedented situation.
