Robert Hall, Michael Woodford Win 2026 Economics Nobel; Get $1.2 Mn Cash Prize

Robert Hall and Michael Woodford, both Americans, have won this year’s Nobel Prize in economics for research on the small-scale foundations behind efforts to keep economies stable, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Monday.

Their win brings the 2026 Nobel season to a close, with the five other prizes having been announced over the past week. The award is worth 12 million Swedish crowns, about $1.2 million.

The economics honour stands apart from the rest. Alfred Nobel, the dynamite inventor, left it out of his 1895 will, which created only five prizes. Sweden’s central bank introduced it later, and the first one was handed out in 1969.

Laureates from the US make up the bulk of the winners so far, and women remain a rarity. Only three have been honoured, the most recent being Claudia Goldin in 2023 for tracing how gender has shaped women’s earnings and job participation in America.

Last year’s recipients were Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt. The academy recognised them for explaining how innovation can drive lasting growth and better living standards through a process known as creative destruction.

Notably, Indian-origin Navi Pillay won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in advancing peace and international law. She is a South African jurist who went on to lead the United Nations’ human rights office

The 85-year-old heard the news on October 9, while attending a forum in Nuremberg, Germany. She was sitting in Courtroom 600, where Nazi leaders stood trial after the Second World War, a coincidence she called fitting.

Pillay grew up under apartheid and rose to senior positions in South Africa’s judiciary and in global legal institutions. Her work helped shape how international law deals with genocide and sexual violence. She dedicated the prize to survivors of international crimes and to people defending international justice, saying their compassion and courage will stop impunity from taking root.

One of her most recent roles was chairing the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In September 2025, the panel concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and were still doing so. It also held that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had incited genocide. Israel rejected the findings.

These were the conclusions of an investigative body and not a verdict from an international court. After the Nobel announcement, Pillay called the report her latest work and said it had put a name to what was unfolding in Gaza.

She also sits on the bench in the International Court of Justice case where The Gambia has accused Myanmar of breaching the Genocide Convention. The Gambia chose her for the proceedings.

Pillay said international law and human rights are facing heavy political attack, pointing in particular to pressure on the International Criminal Court. Efforts to weaken international criminal justice, she cautioned, could erase the progress made since the Nuremberg trials and bring back a world where the powerful, not the law, decide whose suffering counts.

She told political leaders they have a legal duty to protect human rights and to refrain from war.