Americans share Nobel economics win

Americans Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims have won the Nobel economics prize “for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy”.

The prize committee said they winners had developed methods for answering questions such as how economic growth and inflation are affected by a temporary increase in the interest rate or a tax cut. Sargent and Sims – both 68 – carried out their research independently in the 1970s and ’80s.