Lars Peter Hansen
Facts
© Nobel Media AB. Photo: A. Mahmoud
Lars Peter Hansen
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2013
Born: 26 October 1952, Urbana, IL, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Prize motivation: “for their empirical analysis of asset prices”
Prize share: 1/3
Life
Lars Peter Hansen was born in Champaign, Illinois in the United States and studied at Utah State University in Logan, where his father was a professor of biochemistry. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and St Paul in 1978. He worked at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh 1978-81, and then moved to the University of Chicago, where he has worked ever since. Lars Peter Hansen is married with one son.
Work
For many of us, the rise and fall of stock prices symbolizes economic development. Eugene Fama demonstrated that stock price movements are impossible to predict in the short-term, while Robert Shiller discovered that stock prices can be predicted over a longer period. In 1982, Lars Peter Hansen developed a statistical method for testing this type of theory. He demonstrated that Shiller's results could not be fully explained within the then-current models and Hansen's method is now used within all economics research.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
