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| The two economists worked independently on the same work |
Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley have won the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the US academics for their work on the "theory of stable allocations and practice of market design".
The work is concerned with the best possible way to allocate resources, such as in school admissions or organs to patients who need transplants.
Mr Roth is a professor at Harvard and Mr Shapley teaches at the University of California in Los Angeles.
The committee said their work was a form of economic engineering, designing markets for situations where traditional market mechanisms based on price are not applicable or do not work well.
"Even though these two researchers worked independently of one another, the combination of Shapley's basic theory and Roth's empirical investigations, experiments and practical design has generated a flourishing field of research and improved the performance of many markets," the Academy said.
Appearing at a news conference by phone from the US, Mr Roth said: "It sheds a very bright spotlight on the work we do, so that's a good thing.
"My colleagues and I work in an area that we're calling market design, which is sort of a newish area of economics and I'm sure that when I go to class this morning my students will pay more attention."
Source: BBC
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