The Work Behind the Nobel Prize

by Edward L. Glaeser

New York Times
October 11, 2010

This year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science (formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) was awarded today to Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides for their research on “markets with search frictions,” which means any setting where buyers and sellers don’t automatically find each other. Search models are relevant in many settings, including dating, used cars and housing, but above all, these models help us make sense of unemployment.

As the United States unemployment rate has remained above 9.4 percent since May 2009, the prize manages both to honor timeless research on core economic questions and to highlight the ways in which economics addresses a most timely global problem.

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See also:

The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize

Articles in New York Times and Economist.

Research profiles of the three laureates by Tyler Cowen: Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides.

"The Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides Contribution to Economics" by Robert Shimer

Steven Levitt (NYT) on Peter Diamond