Economics Nobel for Princeton professor
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ANGUS Deaton, 69, a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University since 1983, won the Nobel Economics Prize yesterday for his work on consumption, poverty and welfare.
“By emphasizing the links between individual consumption decisions and outcomes for the whole economy, his work has helped transform modern microeconomics, macroeconomics and development economics,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
“To design economic policy that promotes welfare and reduces poverty, we must first understand individual consumption choices. More than anyone else, Angus Deaton has enhanced this understanding,” it said.
Edinburgh-born Deaton was honored for three related achievements: for developing with his colleague John Muellbauer around 1980 a system for estimating the demand for different goods; studies of the link between consumption and income that he conducted around 1990; and the work he carried out in later decades on measuring living standards and poverty in developing countries with the help of household surveys.
His research has shown how the clever use of household data can shed light on issues such as the relationship between income and calorie intake, and the extent of gender discrimination within the family.
“Deaton’s focus on household surveys has helped transform development economics from a theoretical field based on aggregate data to an empirical field based on detailed individual data,” the academy said.
Deaton is optimistic about economic progress in the world. In his 2013 book “The Great Escape” he outlined how overall human welfare — especially longevity and prosperity — has risen so much over time.
Speaking at the Nobel press conference by video link, Deaton said he believed poverty would continue to decline ...
“I do foresee a decrease. I think we’ve had a remarkable decrease for the past 20-30 years. I do expect that to continue,” he said, noting however that there were still 700 million extremely poor people according to the World Bank “so we are not out of the woods yet.”
Deaton said poverty reduction would, for example, resolve the current refugee crisis.
“What we see is the result of hundreds of years of inequal development ... that left a whole part of the world behind,” he said.
“Poverty reduction in poor countries would solve the problem but not in the short term.”
Deaton will receive his prize at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the prizes’ creator, Swedish scientist and philanthropist Alfred Nobel.
The economics prize caps this year’s Nobel season.
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