NYU & UCSD Scholars Share Economics Nobel

American, Brit win economics prize

American Robert F. Engle and Briton Clive W.J. Granger
won the 2003 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
Wednesday for their use of statistical methods for
economic time series.

The research is used to gather data for chronological
observations or for estimating relationships and
testing hypotheses from economic theory, the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Their findings are important because on financial
markets, random fluctuations and volatility can affect
share prices and value, along with other financial instruments.

"Such time series show the development of (gross
domestic product), prices, interest rates, stock
prices, etc.," the citation said.

Engle is on faculty at New York University and Granger
is at the University of California, San Diego. They
will share the prize worth 10 million kronor-- about
$1.3 million.

The economics prize is the only award not established
in the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the
inventor of dynamite. It was established separately in
1968 by the Swedish central bank, but it is grouped
with the other awards.

Past awards have recognized research on topics ranging
from poverty and famine to how multinational
corporations reap profits, and theories on how people
choose jobs and the welfare losses caused by
environmental catastrophes.

Two Americans-- Daniel Kahneman, 68, a U.S. and Israeli
citizen based at Princeton University and Vernon L.
Smith, 75, of George Mason University-- won last year's
prize for pioneering the use of psychological and
experimental economics in decision-making to make
markets safer.

The medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace
prizes were first awarded in 1901.

The announcements of this year's Nobel awards started
last week with the literature prize going to J.M.
Coetzee of South Africa, a Professor at the University
of Illinois.

On Monday, American Paul C. Lauterbur, and Briton Sir
Peter Mansfield were selected for the 2003 Nobel Prize
in physiology or medicine for discoveries leading to
MRI, which reveals images of the body's inner organs.

Tuesday's physics prize went to Alexei A. Abrikosov,
Anthony J. Leggett, and Vitaly L. Ginzburg, for their
work concerning two phenomena called superconductivity
and superfluidity.

Earlier Wednesday, Americans Peter Agre and Roderick
MacKinnon won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for studies
of tiny transportation tunnels in cell walls, work that
illuminates diseases of the heart, kidneys and nervous system.