October 12, 2015

Nobel prize medal (Credit: Nobel Foundation)

Today, October 12, Angus Deaton, an economics professor at Princeton University, won the 2015 Nobel Prize in economics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Memorial Prize in Economic Science to Deaton for “his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare.”  The Nobel academy said that Deaton has enhanced the understanding of choices on consumption made by individuals and that Deaton’s work has helped economists in designing “economic policy that promotes welfare and reduces poverty.”

Deaton is best known for his research in the areas of health, wellbeing, and economic development. The Nobel committee said that by linking detailed individual choices and aggregate (combined) outcomes, Deaton’s research has helped transform such modern fields of economics as microeconomics, macroeconomics, and development economics. According to the academy, Deaton “has consistently tried to bring theory and data closer together through his mastery of measurement and statistical methods.”

Deaton was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Oct. 19, 1945. He taught at Cambridge University and at the University of Bristol before moving to the United States. He holds dual British and American citizenship. Deaton is the Dwight D. Eisenhower professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

His latest research focuses on the important factors of health in rich and poor countries, as well as on the measurement of poverty in India and around the world. His 2013 book, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality, examines how it is that while most people in the world have gained in wellbeing as gross domestic product (GDP) has risen internationally, some groups have missed out entirely on these benefits.