The Nobel Prize for Economics to the Americans Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, auction experts

Steph Deschamps / October 12, 2020

The Nobel Prize in economics was awarded on Monday to the Americans Paul Milgrom, 72, and Robert Wilson, 83, two auction experts whose pioneering work was notably used in the allocation of telecom frequencies.

The “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics in Memory of Alfred Nobel” is awarded to them for “improving auction theory and inventing new auction formats” for the “benefit of sellers, buyers and taxpayers of the world. world, ”said the jury of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The duo, who were a favorite for the award this year, are best known for being behind the concept behind the sale of telecommunications frequency band licenses in the United States. The two economists, both teachers at Stanford have also worked on the mechanisms for allocating landing slots at airports.

In 2019, the prize was awarded to a trio of researchers specializing in the fight against poverty, the Americans Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer and the Franco-American Esther Duflo, second distinguished woman in the discipline and youngest laureate in history. of this price.

The economy comes to end a Nobel season marked on Friday by the peace prize of the World Food Program, the UN body fighting against hunger.

Thursday, the American poet Louise Glück had won literature. In addition to the American Andrea Ghez, co-winner in physics on Tuesday, two women have entered the history of the Nobels for their discovery of "genetic scissors": the French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the American Jennifer Doudna became the first 100% female duo to win a scientific Nobel.

The winners, who share nearly a million euros for each discipline, will this year receive their prize in their country of residence, due to coronavirus.