Congratulations to Michael Woodford on Winning Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

Dear members of the Columbia community,

What an honor and a joy it is to share with you the tremendous and wonderful news that Michael Woodford has won this year’s Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation.” I extend my warmest congratulations to Professor Woodford, who shares this year’s Nobel with Robert E. Hall of Stanford University.

Michael is the John Bates Clark Professor of  Political Economy here at Columbia. He has been awarded the Nobel Prize, alongside Hall, for fundamentally reshaping the theoretical foundations of stabilization policy. Their research has developed macroeconomic models that have advanced and strengthened our capacity to design and deploy more effective economic stabilization policies. Using these models, central banks and finance ministries around the world have become better positioned to stimulate or slow down the economy at the right time to provide stability and to help avoid lengthy boom and bust cycles.

Michael began his academic career at Columbia as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics in 1984. He held positions at the University of Chicago and Princeton University before returning here in 2004. He has been both a MacArthur Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow. He is also an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a fellow of the Econometric Society, of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, and of the Society for Economic Measurement. He has earned numerous awards in economics, including the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics in 2007, the Banque de France/TSE Prize in Monetary Economics in 2018, and in 2024, he was the recipient of the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics.

Michael and his work exemplify Columbia’s commitment to research that advances fundamental knowledge and serves humanity. He joins an august group of 89 Columbians who have won Nobel Prizes in chemistry, economics, literature, peace, physics, and physiology, beginning with President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and continuing through Dr. Louis Brus just three years ago.

Please join me in congratulating Michael on this historic honor. We are immensely proud to call him a Columbian and grateful for the extraordinary contributions he continues to make to macroeconomic theory, monetary policy, and the world.

Sincerely,

Jennifer L. Mnookin
President, Columbia University in the City of New York