2021Nobel Prizes

The Israeli-American economist Joshua Angrist shares the Nobel Prize in Economics.

The prize announced on 11 October 2021 honours methods for finding cause and effect, and Angrist holds a quarter of it.

14
share of the prize
SourceNobelPrize.org
10million kronor
prize amount, split among three laureates
SourceNobelPrize.org
9%
income gain per extra year of school
SourceNobelPrize.org

Here is how it happened.

1982
He enrolls in a master's program in economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He finds the fast-paced Hebrew teaching hard. The same year he meets his future wife, Miriam, a Hebrew University student from Acre.
SourceNobelPrize.org
1983 to 1985
He becomes an Israeli citizen and serves two years in the Israel Defense Forces.
He takes citizenship in March 1983 and is drafted that summer into the Nahal Brigade, an infantry unit. He marries Miriam in August 1985 on Kibbutz Ein HaShofet.
SourceNobelPrize.org
From 1985
He studies the Vietnam-era draft lottery for his doctorate at Princeton.
His adviser Orley Ashenfelter suggests using the lottery to gauge the long-run effects of military service, and it becomes his thesis. His second thesis adviser is the future co-laureate David Card.
SourceNobelPrize.org
1991
Angrist and Alan Krueger use birth dates to measure what an extra year of school is worth.
Children born early in the year can leave school sooner, so those born in the first quarter spend less time in education and earn less. The effect of one more year of education on income is 9 percent.
SourceNobelPrize.org
1994
Angrist and Guido Imbens show what natural experiments can say about cause and effect.
Their study covers programs that people can neither be forced to join nor be forbidden to join. The Academy says the framework they created has radically changed how researchers approach empirical questions.
SourceNobelPrize.org
11 October 2021
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announces the economics prize.
It is for methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships. One half goes to David Card, and the other half goes jointly to Angrist, of MIT, and Imbens.
SourceNobelPrize.org

1 of 6

Here is why it matters.

The laureates showed that natural experiments, where chance events or policy changes treat groups differently, can answer big questions in the social sciences. The Academy says they clarified exactly which conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn.

2002
Tel Aviv-born Daniel Kahneman wins the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Read the story
2005
Hebrew University's Robert Aumann wins the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Read the story
2025
Joel Mokyr, affiliated with Tel Aviv University, shares the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Read the story

Where each fact was read.

Sources read on 1 November 2026.

The story in numbers.

Here is how it happened.

He enrolls in a master's program in economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He becomes an Israeli citizen and serves two years in the Israel Defense Forces.

He studies the Vietnam-era draft lottery for his doctorate at Princeton.

Angrist and Alan Krueger use birth dates to measure what an extra year of school is worth.

Angrist and Guido Imbens show what natural experiments can say about cause and effect.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announces the economics prize.

Here is why it matters.

Three more milestones to read next.

Tel Aviv-born Daniel Kahneman wins the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Hebrew University's Robert Aumann wins the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Joel Mokyr, affiliated with Tel Aviv University, shares the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Where each fact was read.