Sargent wins Nemmers Prize

Sargent is internationally known for his work in empirical and theoretical macroeconomics. He has conducted pioneering research analyzing how consumers and firms form expectations about future government policies, and his work has been instrumental in developing empirical versions of the theory of rational expectations.

"We are delighted that Tom has received this award," said Jose Scheinkman, the Alvin H. Baum Professor and Chairman of Economics. "Tom has made a remarkable contribution to the field of macroeconomics, and he is an excellent choice for this honor."

The Nemmers Prize is awarded by Northwestern University, and as part of the prize Sargent will spend 10 weeks there as a visiting scholar during the 1996-97 academic year.

Sargent is the author of several books, including Rational Expectations Econometrics (1991), which he co-wrote with Lars Peter Hansen, the Homer J. Livingston Professor in Economics. His other books include Macroeconomic Theory (1979, 1987), Exercises in Dynamic Macroeconomics (1987) and Rational Expectations and Economic Practice (1981), which he co-edited with Robert Lucas, the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and winner of the 1995 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Sargent received his B.A. from Berkeley in 1964 and his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1968. For the next two years, he served first as lieutenant and then as captain in the U.S. Army and was acting director of the economics division of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense.

He then was on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and, from 1975 to 1987, at the University of Minnesota. He was a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford from 1985 until 1987, when he became a senior fellow there.

Sargent was at Chicago from 1976 to 1977 as a Ford Foundation Visiting Research Professor in Economics. He received the Mary Elizabeth Morgan Prize for Excellence in Economics from the University in 1979. He joined the Chicago faculty as the David A. Rockefeller Professor in Economics in 1991.