Edward Prescott

Edward C. Prescott was a preeminent economist in Business & Economics, serving as Regents Professor and W. P. Carey Chair in Economics at Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business from 2003 until his death on November 6, 2022, at age 81. He also directed the Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency since 2009. Prescott received a BA in mathematics from Swarthmore College in 1962, an MS in operations research from Case Western Reserve University in 1963, and a PhD in economics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1967. His career featured faculty appointments at the University of Pennsylvania from 1966 to 1971, Carnegie Mellon University until 1980, and University of Minnesota from 1980 to 2003. He held visiting professorships at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, New York University, University of California Santa Barbara, La Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo in Mexico, Australian National University, and the Norwegian School of Economics. Additionally, he served as a senior advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis since 1981.

Prescott's research centered on macroeconomics, including real business-cycle theory developed with Finn E. Kydland, which attributes business-cycle fluctuations to real productivity shocks. He shared the 2004 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Kydland for pioneering contributions to dynamic macroeconomics, specifically the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles, transforming economic research and profoundly influencing monetary policy. Other distinctions include the 2002 Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics, Guggenheim Fellowship, fellowship in the Econometric Society, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and National Academy of Sciences, and five honorary doctorates and professorships. Notable publications include "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans" (1977, with Kydland), "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations" (1982, with Kydland), "The Equity Premium: A Puzzle" (1985, with Rajnish Mehra), "Business Cycles: Real Facts and a Monetary Myth" (1990, with Kydland), and the book "Barriers to Riches" (2000, with Stephen L. Parente). His projects examined technology capital and the U.S. current account, financial intermediation and crises, government debt quantities, lifetime labor supply, and the equity premium puzzle, leaving a lasting impact on the field.