US auction theorists win Nobel Economics Prize

STOCKHOLM - Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson have won the 2020 Nobel Economics Prize for their work on auction theory.

The Stanford University game theorists have helped in developing formats for the sale of aircraft landing slots, radio spectrums, and emissions trading.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work “benefitted sellers, buyers and taxpayers” worldwide.

Game theory uses mathematics to study decision-making, conflict, and strategy in social situations.

“This year’s laureates in economic sciences started out with fundamental theory and later used their results in practical applications, which have spread globally.

Their discoveries are of great benefit to society,” said Peter Fredriksson, chair of the prize committee.

However, the award was criticised. A charity said economics was “depressingly out of touch” with global problems, including the impact of coronavirus.

The Rethinking Economics charity, which pushes for a broader application of economics, said it was “disappointing” that the prize had gone to “two white men from the global north working on auction theory”.

Catriona Watson, co- director of Rethinking Economics said: “The discipline of economics is depressingly out of touch.

The prize, worth 10m Swedish crowns (£887,000), is not one of the original five Nobel awards created in the 1895 will of industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, but was established by Sweden’s central bank and first awarded in 1969. – BBC.