I’d also like to offer congratulations, on behalf of myself and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, to Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims, winners of the 2011 Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. In the 1970s, in separate research, Sargent and Sims developed systematic approaches to distinguishing between cause and effect in macroeconomic data.
Now, almost 40 years later, their thinking informs the making of macroeconomic policy around the world. I’m especially proud that much of the work recognized by the prize committee was done at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota.