The 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Professor Robert E. Hall of Stanford University and Professor Michael Woodford of Columbia University for their contributions to the microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilization policy.

Unlike other Nobel Prizes, the economics prize was not established under Alfred Nobel’s will. It was created by Sweden’s central bank in 1968 to commemorate Nobel. Because economics has many branches and a large pool of candidates, its candidate structure differs from that of prizes such as physics. While breakthroughs honored by natural science prizes usually have clear discovery timelines, the selection focus of the economics prize shows a degree of randomness, making it the hardest Nobel Prize to predict.