The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2015 – i.e. the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences – to Angus Deaton, a Scottish-American economist who works at Princeton University, NJ, USA.
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Academy), Prof. Deaton has been awarded the prize “for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare.”
In order to design economic policy that reduces poverty and promotes welfare, we need to first understand individual consumption choices, the Academy wrote.
“More than anyone else, Angus Deaton has enhanced this understanding. By linking detailed individual choices and aggregate outcomes, his research has helped transform the fields of microeconomics, macroeconomics, and development economics,” the Academy added.
Prof. Deaton’s work revolves around three central questions:
- How do consumers distribute their spending among different goods?
- How much of society’s income is spent and how much is saved?
- How do we best measure and analyze welfare and poverty?
Some groups have missed out on GDP growth benefits
In his book ‘The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality’, Deaton argues that a more sophisticated analysis of economic data shows that while the majority of people on our planet have gained in terms of well-being and health from economic growth, several groups have missed out.
He says his latest research, which “focuses on the determinants of health in rich and poor countries, as well as on the measurement of poverty in India and around the world,” reflects this global view.
The economics prize was established in 1968. It was not part of the original awards the dynamite tycoon Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896) had set out in his will.
About Angus Deaton
Name: Angus Stewart Deaton.
Born: 19 October, 1945, in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Education: He earned his B.A., M.A. and DPhil at Cambridge University, UK.
Career: He was Professor of Econometrics at the University of Bristol, UK, before moving to Princeton University, USA, in 1983. Econometrics is the application of statistical methods and mathematics to describe economic theories and systems.
Today, he is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and Economics Department at Princeton.
Video – How to decide who is poor
This is a video of a lecture given by Prof. Deaton at the London School of Economics in December 2014.
