Stockholm: United States economists Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson won the Nobel Economics prize 2020 on Monday. Their work on commercial auctions, including for goods and services difficult to sell in traditional ways such as radio frequencies, said the Nobel Committee. The two economists was honoured “For improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats”, said the jury.

According to a statement of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the discoveries by Milgrom, 72, and Wilson, 83, “have benefitted sellers, buyers and taxpayers around the world.” The winners will share the prize sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $1.1 million, 950,000 euros). Even if it might be the most prestigious prize an economist can hope to receive, the economics prize has not reached the same status as those originally chosen by Alfred Nobel in his will, which included medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.