Economics Nobel 2010 - Meet the winners

A British-Cypriot and two Americans, including one nominated by US President Barack Obama to the Federal Reserve board, won the 2010 economics Nobel on Monday for work helping explain unemployment and job markets.

The work honored is highly topical since many countries with developed economies, including the United States, are worried about future job growth after the worst global crisis since the Depression.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 10 million crown ($1.5 million) prize to U.S. professors Dale Mortensen and Peter Diamond, the 70-year-old nominee to the Fed, as well as British-Cypriot Christopher Pissarides, 62.

The men's work on search markets helped explain how it was possible so many people could be unemployed at a time when a large number of jobs were on offer.

"Search theory has emerged as the predominant model for considering the effects of economic-policy measures on the labor market," the committee said in a statement.

These measures include the size of unemployment benefits and rules on hiring and firing.

"Clearly the theory does not offer very simple prescriptions for how to return to full employment," Tore Ellingsen, a member of the prize committee, said.

"On the contrary, the theory explains why it is so hard when you have had a shock, an economic shock, like we have just had, why it takes so long to get back to full employment," he told a news conference.

More about the winners.

Text: Reuters/www.nobel.org/London School of Economics

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