NYU Prof Wins Economics Nobel

Paul Romer, a professor of economics at NYU Stern, won the Nobel Prize in Economics on Monday (October 8). NYU photo

Paul Romer, a professor of economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, won the Nobel Prize in Economics on Monday (October 8). He shares the honor with William Nordhaus of Yale University.

In awarding the prize to Romer, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited his contributions “for integrating technological innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis.” Romer has shown how economic forces govern the willingness of firms to produce new ideas and innovations, laying the foundations for a new model for development known as endogenous growth theory. Nordhaus was the first person to create a quantitative model describing the interplay between the economy and the climate, according to the Swedish Academy.

“Their findings have significantly broadened the scope of economic analysis by constructing models that explain how the market economy interacts with nature and knowledge,” the academy said in statement.

A VETERAN OF FACULTIES ACROSS U.S.

Romer, who is currently on leave from NYU, joined NYU Stern in 2010 and founded the NYU Stern Urbanization Project in 2011, conducting applied research on the many ways that policymakers in the developing world can use the growth of cities to create economic opportunity and pursue social reform.

Romer also directed NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management. The Marron Institute deepens the fundamental understanding of cities by working with civic innovators to improve urban management—making cities safer, healthier, and more mobile and inclusive.

Before coming to NYU, Romer taught at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he took an entrepreneurial detour to start Aplia, an education technology company dedicated to increasing student effort and classroom engagement. To date, students have submitted more than a billion answers to homework problems on the Aplia website. Prior to Stanford, Romer taught in the economics departments at the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester.

$1 MILLION PRIZE FOR NOBEL WINNERS

“This year’s Laureates do not deliver conclusive answers, but their findings have brought us considerably closer to answering the question of how we can achieve sustained and sustainable global economic growth,” the Swedish Academy said of Romer and Nordhaus.

The Nobel award carries with it a monetary prize of 9 million Swedish crowns, or $1 million. It was established in 1968 — not part of the original group of five awards set out in Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will.

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