STOCKHOLM (AP) — This year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to three U.S.-based economists “for research on banks and financial crises.”
The award to Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig was announced Monday by the Nobel panel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Dybvig won for research on “Banks and Financial Crises.” He is a professor of banking and finance at the Olin Business School of Washington University in St. Louis.
Philip H. Dybvig grew up in Ohio and has several degrees from schools including Indiana University and Yale. He taught at Princeton and Yale before joining the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis.
In 1983 Dybvig published a paper that became a pillar of modern banking theory. Over nearly four decades, the ideas in this paper have been used by regulators and cited by academics. It is the “go-to” paper to understand a financial crisis.
“Philip Dybvig is a brilliant economist whose work has been transformative in his field and has had an indelible impact on our nation’s financial markets and the health of our economy,” Washington University Chancellor Andrew D. Martin said in a statement. “By helping us to understand the role of banks in the economy, his research has been instrumental in how we respond to financial crises, and attempt to head them off in the first place.”
Dybvig has also spent a lot of time in China. He runs a summer research program in Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Some of his passions outside of academics and economics include playing jazz, weightlifting, walking, solving puzzle games like Taiji, and martial arts including Qigong, and Tui Shou.
Nobel Prizes carry a cash award of $10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out on December 10.
Unlike the other prizes, the Economics Award wasn’t established in Alfred Nobel’s will of 1895, but by the Swedish Central Bank in his memory. The first winner was selected in 1969.
