Friedrich von Hayek
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Friedrich August von Hayek
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1974
Born: 8 May 1899, Vienna, Austria
Died: 23 March 1992, Freiburg, Germany
Prize motivation: “for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena”
Prize share: 1/2
Life
Friedrich von Hayek was born in Vienna, Austria. He earned doctorates in law and political science in 1921 and 1923 at the University of Vienna. He founded and served as director of the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research before joining the London School of Economics in 1931. From 1950-62 he lived in the United States and after that mostly in Germany.
Work
Economic issues affect almost every area of society and economic science also interplays with other social sciences. In the 1920s, Friedrich von Hayek conducted important work on business cycles, but later developed broader social analyses. From the 1930s, he highlighted the problems of central economic planning. His conclusion was that knowledge and information held by various actors can only be utilized fully in a decentralized market system with free competition and pricing.
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.
