Nobel Prize in Economics
Jewish recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics documented in the ThankJews directory. Jews are about 40% of all recipients — while making up roughly 0.2% of the world's population.
40 documented recipients
Paul Samuelson1948
Economic Theory
Source: Nobel Prize Economics 1970
Simon Kuznets1971
Empirical research on economic growth and the measurement of national income
Source: Jinfo.org / Nobel Prize Economics 1971
Kenneth Arrow1972
Economist who proved the impossibility theorem of social choice and, with Gérard Debreu, the existence of a general equilibrium in a competitive economy; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1972
Source: Wikipedia — Kenneth Arrow / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1972
Wassily Leontief1905
Economist who created input-output analysis and compiled the first input-output tables of the American economy; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1973
Source: Wikipedia — Wassily Leontief / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1973
Leonid Kantorovich1912
Founded linear programming; Nobel laureate in economics.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Computer Science
Milton Friedman1962
Free Market Economics
Source: Nobel Prize Economics 1976
Herbert Simon1978
Social scientist of administrative decision-making and bounded rationality, and with Allen Newell a pioneer of artificial intelligence; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1978
Source: Wikipedia — Herbert A. Simon / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1978
Lawrence Klein1980
Economist who built the first large econometric models of national economies, the Wharton models and Project LINK; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1980
Source: Wikipedia — Lawrence Klein / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1980
Franco Modigliani1985
Life-Cycle Hypothesis
Source: Nobel Prize Economics 1985
Robert Solow1987
Economic Growth Theory
Source: Nobel Prize Economics 1987
Harry Markowitz1990
Modern portfolio theory: choosing investments by the expected return and the variance of the whole portfolio (Portfolio Selection, 1952); Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1990
Source: Wikipedia — Harry Markowitz / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1990
Merton Miller1990
Modigliani–Miller theorems on capital structure and dividend policy (1958, with Franco Modigliani), foundation of modern corporate finance; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1990
Source: Wikipedia — Merton Miller / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1990
Gary Becker1992
Economic Analysis of Human Behavior
Source: Nobel Prize Economics 1992
Robert Fogel1993
Renewal of economic history using quantitative and economic-theory methods
Source: Jinfo.org / Nobel Prize Economics 1993
John Harsanyi1920
Analysis of games of incomplete information (1967–1968), a foundation of the economics of information; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1994
Source: Wikipedia — John Harsanyi / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1994
Reinhard Selten1994
Subgame perfection (1965) and trembling-hand perfection (1975), refining the Nash equilibrium; pioneer of experimental economics; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1994
Source: Wikipedia — Reinhard Selten / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1994
Robert C. Merton1997
Nobel laureate in economics (1997) for the Black-Scholes-Merton option-pricing model; son of sociologist Robert K. Merton
Source: Jinfo.org — Jewish Nobel Prize winners in Economics
Myron Scholes1997
Black–Scholes option-pricing formula (1973, with Fischer Black); Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1997
Source: Wikipedia — Myron Scholes / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1997
George Akerlof1940
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2001 for the analysis of markets with asymmetric information; his 1970 paper The Market for Lemons showed how hidden quality can make a market wither
Source: Wikipedia — George Akerlof / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2001
Joseph Stiglitz2001
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2001 for the analysis of markets with asymmetric information (screening, credit rationing, efficiency wages); chief economist of the World Bank 1997–2000
Source: Wikipedia — Joseph Stiglitz / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2001
Daniel Kahneman2002
Psychologist who, with Amos Tversky, documented the systematic biases of intuitive judgment and developed prospect theory (1979); Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2002
Source: Wikipedia — Daniel Kahneman / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2002
Robert Aumann2005
Game Theory
Source: Nobel Prize Economics 2005
Leonid Hurwicz1917
Founder of mechanism design theory; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2007, received at ninety, the oldest laureate to that date
Source: Wikipedia — Leonid Hurwicz / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2007
Eric Maskin1950
Nobel laureate (2007) for developing the theory of mechanism design
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Economics
Roger Myerson1951
Nobel laureate (2007) for foundational work on mechanism design and game theory
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Economics
Paul Krugman2008
New trade theory and new economic geography; sole winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity
Source: Wikipedia — Paul Krugman / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2008
Elinor Ostrom2009
First woman to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2009), for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons; daughter of a Jewish father, raised Protestant
Source: Wikipedia — Elinor Ostrom / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2009
Peter Diamond1940
Economist who laid the foundations of search theory — why unemployment and job vacancies coexist — and wrote widely used models of public debt and optimal taxation; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic…
Source: Wikipedia — Peter Diamond / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2010
Alvin Roth2012
Theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design
Source: Jinfo.org / Nobel Prize Economics 2012
Oliver Hart2016
Nobel laureate in economics (2016) for contract theory
Source: Jinfo.org — Jewish Nobel Prize winners in Economics
Richard Thaler2017
Founder of behavioural economics — mental accounting, the endowment effect, fairness and self-control — and co-author of Nudge (2008); Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2017
Source: Wikipedia — Richard Thaler / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2017
William Nordhaus1941
Economist who built the first integrated assessment models of the economy and the climate, including the DICE model (1992); Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2018
Source: Wikipedia — William Nordhaus / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2018
Michael Kremer2019
Nobel laureate in economics (2019) for experimental approaches to fighting poverty
Source: Jinfo.org — Jewish Nobel Prize winners in Economics
Paul Milgrom1948
Economist who generalised auction theory and, with Robert Wilson, designed the simultaneous multiple round auction first used for US radio spectrum in 1994; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences…
Source: Wikipedia — Paul Milgrom / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2020
Joshua Angrist1960
Economist who, with Guido Imbens, showed what natural experiments can reveal about cause and effect, and used them to measure the effects of schooling, class size and military service; Nobel Memorial…
Source: Wikipedia — Joshua Angrist / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 2021
Ben Bernanke2006
Economist who showed how bank failures deepened and prolonged the Great Depression; chaired the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2022
Source: Wikipedia — Ben Bernanke / NobelPrize.org — Ben Bernanke, Biographical
Douglas Diamond1953
Nobel laureate (2022) whose Diamond-Dybvig model explains bank runs and the role of banks in financial crises
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Economics
Claudia Goldin2023
Nobel laureate (2023) who chronicled women's place in the labor market; Nemmers Prize (2020)
Source: Jinfo.org — Jewish recipients of the Nemmers Prize in Economics
Philippe Aghion2025
Economist who, with Peter Howitt, built the model of growth through creative destruction (1992); John von Neumann Award 2009; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2025
Source: Wikipedia — Philippe Aghion / NobelPrize.org — Philippe Aghion, Facts
Joel Mokyr2025
Economic historian who showed that sustained growth needed both practical know-how and scientific explanation, in a culture open to new ideas; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2025; son of…
Source: Wikipedia — Joel Mokyr / NobelPrize.org — Joel Mokyr, Facts