Angus Deaton is the 2015 winner of the Nobel
prize in economics. The Scottish-born economist is best known for his
work on health, wellbeing, and economic development.
The Nobel Committee said: “To design economic policy that promotes
welfare and reduces poverty, we must first understand individual
consumption choices. More than anyone else, Angus Deaton has enhanced
this understanding.
“By linking detailed individual choices and aggregate outcomes, his
research has helped transform the fields of microeconomics,
macroeconomics, and development economics.”
His book, "The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of
Inequality", argues that a more sophisticated analysis of economic data
shows that while most people in the world have gained in terms of health
and wellbeing from GDP growth, there are many groups that have missed
out.
This global view is reflected in his latest research, which he says
“focuses on the determinants of health in rich and poor countries, as
well as on the measurement of poverty in India and around the world”.
Measuring poverty is often based on snapshot surveys of income levels,
but Deaton is lauded for adopting groups or cohorts of the population
and examining the improvements, or not, in their wellbeing.
Deaton, 69, was born in Edinburgh and educated at the same private
school as former prime minister Tony Blair, Fettes College. He went to
Cambridge where he later taught, before moving to the US and taking dual
citizenship.
He is currently the Dwight D Eisenhower professor of economics and
international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs at Princeton.
As he says in his Bio...
I am the Dwight D.
Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the
Economics Department at Princeton University. My main current research
areas are in health, wellbeing, and economic development.
I hold both American and British citizenship. In Britain I taught at
Cambridge University and the University of Bristol. I am a corresponding
Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, and of the Econometric Society and, in 1978, was the first
recipient of the Society's Frisch Medal. I was President of the American
Economic Association in 2009. In 2012 I was awarded the BBVA Foundation
Frontiers of Knowledge Award. In April 2014 I was elected a member of
the American Philosophical Society. I was elected a member of the
National Academy of Sciences on April 28, 2015.
My current research focuses on the determinants of health in rich and
poor countries, as well as on the measurement of poverty in India and
around the world. I also maintain a long-standing interest in the
analysis of household surveys. To view information about my research on
India and world poverty, health, or household surveys, click each
corresponding link.
To view my working papers and publications and my letters published
every six months in the Royal Economic Society Newsletter, click each
corresponding link.
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