Nobel Economics Prize Is Awarded For Research Into Differences In Prosperity Between Nations

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The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences unveils the winner — or winners — of the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics on Monday, wrapping up six days of awards announcements. The award is formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. 

The central bank established it as a memorial to Nobel, the 19th-century Swedish businessman and chemist who invented dynamite and established the five Nobel Prizes. The first winners were Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen in 1969. 

Last year, Harvard University professor Claudia Goldin was honored for her research that helps explain why women around the world are less likely than men to work and why they earn less money when they do. She was only the third woman among the 93 economics laureates.

Though Nobel purists stress that the economics prize is technically not a Nobel Prize, it is always presented together with the others on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896. Nobel honors were announced last week in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.