The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2017 was awarded on Monday to Dr Richard H Thaler for his contributions to behavioural economics.

The work done by the 72-year-old winner of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Science has helped connect the economic and psychological analyses of individual decision making, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science said.

Thaler is a professor of Behavioural Science and Economics at the University of Chicago in the United States.

The professor’s findings and insights have helped expand the field of behavioural economics, which in turn has had a profound impact on many areas of economic research and policy, the academy said. Thaler has integrated economics with psychology, and studied how human traits affect individual decisions as well as market outcomes.

Thaler is the co-author of best-seller Nudge (2008) in which he discusses the concepts of behavioural economics that are used to tackle society’s problems. He has also written Quasi-Rational Economics and The Winner’s Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life.

Last year’s prize

Professors Oliver Hart of Harvard and Bengt Holmstrom of MIT had won the Nobel Prize in Economics Sciences in 2016. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the pair won for their work on contractual theory, and that their work focused on contracts like insurance claims, property rights and salaries. Their research has also helped explain how contracts help people deal with conflicting interests.