Two former University of Minnesota Department of Economics faculty – Thomas Sargent of New York University and Christopher Sims of Princeton University – have been awarded the 2011 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences “for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy.”

Their work has helped explain why economies respond the way they do to intervention by central banks or other government authorities.

“We are beyond excited at the University of Minnesota for our former colleagues Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims,” university President Eric Kaler said. “Their accomplishments carry on our economics program’s legacy of teaching and research that has had a worldwide impact.”

Sargent and Sims still have strong U of M ties. Sargent is a current member of the U of M Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute board. The institute was named in part after the late Leo Hurwicz, a longtime professor of economics at the University of Minnesota, who was a co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in economics.

V. V. Chari, University of Minnesota economics professor and HHEI founding director, is available for interviews today to discuss Sargent and Sims’ research.