UK, Finland-born economists win 2016 Nobel Prize for Economics

Finnish Professor Bengt Holmstrom of Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT during a business seminar in Helsinki, Finland, November 2, 2015. Lehtikuva/Jussi Nukari/via REUTERS

STOCKHOLM/CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - British-born Oliver Hart and Finland's Bengt Holmstrom won the Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for work that addresses a host of questions from how best to reward executives to whether schools and prisons should be privately owned.

Their findings on contract theory have implications in such areas as corporate governance, bankruptcy law and political constitutions, said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which announced the 8 million Swedish crown (750,517 pound) prize.