American trio wins Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

Agencies | Stockholm          

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

This year, the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Ben S Bernanke, Douglas W Diamond and Philip H Dybvig “for research on banks and financial crises”, concluding an eventful week of Nobel Prize announcements, that began a week ago.

The trio were given the nod for having "significantly improved our understanding of the role of banks in the economy, particularly during financial crises, as well as how to regulate financial markets", the jury said.

The winners were announced on Monday at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

Unlike the other prizes, the Economic Sciences award wasn’t established in Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, but by Sveriges Riksbank, the Swedish central bank, in his memory. The first winner was selected in 1969.

Last year, half of the award went to David Card for his research on how the minimum wage, immigration and education affect the labour market. The other half was shared by Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens for proposing how to study issues that don't easily fit traditional scientific methods.

A week of Nobel Prize announcements kicked off on Monday with Swedish scientist Svante Pääbo receiving the award in medicine, for unlocking secrets of Neanderthal DNA that provided key insights into our immune system.

Three scientists jointly won the prize in Physics on Tuesday. Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger had shown that tiny particles could retain a connection with each other even when separated — a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement — that can be used for specialised computing and to encrypt information.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday to Americans Carolyn R Bertozzi and K Barry Sharpless, as well as the Danish scientist Morten Meldal for developing a way of “snapping molecules together” that can be used to explore cells, map DNA and design drugs that can target diseases such as cancer more precisely.

French author Annie Ernaux won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. The panel commended her for blending fiction and autobiography in books that fearlessly mine her experiences as a working-class woman, to explore life in France since the 1940s.

The Nobel Peace Prize went to jailed Belarus human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial, and the Ukrainian organisation Centre for Civil Liberties, on Friday.

The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out on December 10.