A trio of economics scholars, including an MIT professor whose nomination to the Federal Reserve board has been held up in the Senate, won the Nobel Prize in economics on Monday for their studies of markets and how mismatches between buyers and sellers can contribute to such problems as high unemployment.
Peter A. Diamond of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and fellow American Dale T. Mortensen, a professor at Northwestern University, will share the $1.5 million award with Christopher A. Pissarides, a British and Cypriot citizen who teaches at the London School of Economics.
The three men pioneered and developed models that help explain, among other things, why there are so many jobless people even as there are a large number of job openings ”” a problem that is particularly relevant today as the United States and other developed countries grapple with stubbornly high unemployment.