Recent winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and their research, according to the Nobel Foundation:

-- 2008: American Paul Krugman for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.
-- 2007: Americans Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson for laying the foundations of mechanism design theory.
-- 2006: American Edmund S. Phelps for furthering the understanding of the trade-offs between inflation and its effects on unemployment.
-- 2005: Robert J. Aumann, of Israel and the United States, and American Thomas C. Schelling, for their work in game-theory analysis.
-- 2004: Finn E. Kydland, Norway, and Edward C. Prescott, United States, for their contribution to dynamic macroeconomics.
-- 2003: Robert F. Engle, United States, and Clive W.J. Granger, Britain, for their use of statistical methods for economic time series.
-- 2002: Daniel Kahneman, United States and Israel, and Vernon L. Smith, United States, for pioneering the use of psychological and experimental economics in decision-making.
-- 2001: George A. Akerlof, A. Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz, United States, for research into how the control of information affects markets.
-- 2000: James J. Heckman and Daniel L. McFadden, United States, for their work in developing theories to help analyze labor data and how people make work and travel decisions.
-- 1999: Robert A. Mundell, Canada, for innovative analysis of exchange rates that helped lay the intellectual groundwork for Europe's common currency.
-- 1998: Amartya Sen, India, for contributions to welfare economics, which help explain the economic mechanisms underlying famines and poverty.
-- 1997: Robert C. Merton and Myron S. Scholes, United States, for developing a formula for the valuation of stock options.
-- 1996: James A. Mirrlees, Britain, and William Vickrey, United States, for contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information.
-- 1995: Robert E. Lucas Jr., United States, for having developed and applied the hypothesis of rational expectations.
-- 1994: John C. Harsanyi and John F. Nash, United States, and Reinhard Selten, Germany, for their contribution to the theory of noncooperative games.
-- 1993: Robert W. Fogel and Douglass C. North, United States, for applying economic theory and quantitative methods to explain economic and institutional changes.
-- 1992: Gary S. Becker, United States, for extending microeconomic theory to a wide range of human behavior.
-- 1991: Ronald Coase, Britain, for discovering and clarifying the significance of transaction costs and property rights for the functioning of the economy.
-- 1990: Harry M. Markowitz, William F. Sharpe and Merton Miller, United States, for pioneering work in the theory of financial economics.
-- 1989: Trygve Haavelmo, Norway, for clarification of the probability theory foundation of econometrics.
-- 1988: Maurice Allais, France, for contributions to the theory of markets and the efficient use of resources.
-- 1987: Robert M. Solow, United States, for contributions to the theory of economic growth.
-- 1986: James M. Buchanan Jr., United States, for research in the theory of economic and political decision-making.
-- 1985: Franco Modigliani, United States, for analyses of saving and of financial markets.
-- 1984: Richard Stone, Britain, for contributions to the development of systems of national accounts.
-- 1983: Gerard Debreu, United States, for the reformulation of the theory of general equilibrium.
-- 1982: George J. Stigler, United States, for studies of industrial structures and the causes and effects of public regulation.
-- 1981: James Tobin, United States, for the analysis of financial markets and their relation to expenditure, production, employment and prices.
-- 1980: Lawrence R. Klein, United States, for the creation of certain econometric models.