The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences to two American economists – Paul R Milgrom and Robert B Wilson – for improving commercial auction and inventing new auction formats.
“This year’s Laureates, Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, have studied how auctions work,” a statement said. “They have also used their insights to design new auction formats for goods and services that are difficult to sell in a traditional way, such as radio frequencies. Their discoveries have benefitted sellers, buyers and taxpayers around the world.”
The winners will share a gold medal and the prize money of 10 million krona (approximately Rs 8.20 crore).
Last year, economist Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, were given the award for more than 20 years of economic research to develop new ways to study and help the poor.
With this prize, the 2020 Nobel season came to an end. This year, women have won more than usual – American poet Louise Glück won the literature prize while Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna became the first all-female duo to win a scientific Nobel for their work on genome editing.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency, for its efforts to combat hunger and improve conditions for peace in areas affected by conflict.
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for black hole discovery. One half of the prize was given to Penrose and the other half jointly to Genzel and Ghez.
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Americans Harvey J Alter and Charles Rice along with Briton Michael Houghton for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus on October 5.
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