Photo: Jon Roemer

Kahneman wins Nobel Prize in Economics

<Posted 10/09/2002 10:20>

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Daniel Kahneman, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and professor of public affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, has been awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in economic sciences.

In its announcement today, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Kahneman "for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty."

The academy also said Kahneman has laid "the foundation for a new field of research. Kahneman's main findings concern decision-making under uncertainty, where he has demonstrated how human decisions may systematically depart from those predicted by standard economic theory.... His work has inspired a new generation of researchers in economics and finance to enrich economic theory using insights from cognitive psychology into intrinsic human motivation."

Kahneman was awarded the economics prize along with Vernon Smith, a professor of economics and law at George Mason University. Kahneman and Smith will share the $1 million prize money.

Born in 1934 in Tel Aviv, Israel, Kahneman received his Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley in 1961. He was a professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley from 1986 to 1994. He has also taught at the University of British Columbia and Hebrew University. Kahneman has been a professor at Princeton since 1993.

A full press release is available. More information about the award is available on the Nobel site The full citation can be accessed in Adobe PDF format.