Douglas Diamond, Philip H. Dybvig also recognized for research on banks and financial crises
The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded Monday to former Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and two other U.S. academics whose work helped governments and central bankers navigate the global financial crisis and avoid an economic depression of the kind seen during the 1930s.
Mr. Bernanke, who served as chairman of the Fed during the crisis, is currently a distinguished senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His fellow recipients are Douglas Diamond, an economist at the University of Chicago, and Philip H. Dybvig, an economist at Washington University.
Announcing the prize, Stockholm University economist John Hassler said their research had proved invaluable during the 2008 crisis, which brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse.
The award to Mr. Bernanke cited a 1983 publication establishing bank failures as key to the transformation of an economic recession into the most severe depression of the 20th century.