Hall and Woodford win 2026 economics prize

American economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford jointly received the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for work on the microeconomic foundations of economic stabilisation, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced October 12. The prize, formally awarded in memory of Alfred Nobel, carries 12 million Swedish kronor, to be shared equally. The Academy said Hall and Woodford rebuilt economic models around the decisions of households and businesses, providing a basis for analysing how fiscal and monetary policy can affect wider economic activity. Hall, a professor at Stanford University, studied household demand and consumption choices. Woodford, a professor at Columbia University, focused on the supply side, including how companies set prices. Their work links such individual decisions and expectations to broader movements in output, employment and inflation, rather than relying only on statistical relationships among aggregate economic measures. John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said the research provides a theoretical foundation for models used by central banks and governments.