Hall and Woodford Win Nobel Economics Prize for Central-Bank Models

Robert E. Hall of Stanford University and Michael Woodford of Columbia University won the 2026 Nobel economics prize Monday for models that underpin modern efforts to stabilize economies and guide central-bank policy.

The economists were recognized for giving macroeconomic stability policy a stronger microeconomic foundation. Their work examines how households and businesses make forward-looking decisions about saving, consumption and prices, and how those choices affect the wider economy.

The models show how policy communication can shape expectations about future economic conditions. Timely fiscal and monetary measures can then help reduce the severity of expansions and contractions, with implications for how markets assess interest rates, liquidity and economic stability.

The award also reflects a shift away from relying primarily on statistical relationships among inflation, output and consumption. The approach gained importance after the oil shocks of the 1970s, when high inflation, weak growth and elevated unemployment challenged existing policy models.

Hall, born in 1943, is a professor at Stanford. Woodford, born in 1955, is a professor at Columbia. Both earned doctorates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.