Two American Economists, One Jewish, Win Nobel Prize

Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley, American economists with ties to Israeli universities, won the Nobel Prize for Economics.

The professors won the prize, called the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, for their research in how to make economic markets work better by more precisely matching supply with demand. Shapley used game theory to study the problem. Roth helped redesign the medical residents' match program to make it more efficient for young doctors.

The prize was announced Monday.

Shapely, 89, was awarded an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University in 1986 and has worked with Israeli Nobel Prize laureate Robert Auman, who won his Nobel for his work with game theory.

Roth, who is Jewish, was a visiting professor of economics at The Technion in Haifa in 1986, and a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University in 1995. Roth frequently visits Israel, Auman told JTA.

"I have been hoping for this for years," Auman said of the award to Roth and Shapley. "It is absolutely the best choice that could be made."

Roth, 60, is a professor at Harvard University in Boston, but will be leaving for Stanford University, where he is currently a visiting professor of economics, at the end of the year. Shapley is professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles.