NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two Americans and one British-Cypriot citizen were awarded the 2010 Nobel prize in economic sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced in Stockholm Monday.
The Nobel prize went to Peter Diamond of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.; Dale Mortensen of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.; and Christopher Pissarides of the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.
The three received the prize for research on so-called "search frictions" -- analyzing how economic policy affects unemployment. Their theories "help us understand the ways in which unemployment, job vacancies, and wages are affected by regulation and economic policy," said the academy in a statement.
Earlier this year, Diamond had been nominated by President Obama to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve.
Reached by phone in London, Pissarides told the academy that he felt a "mixture of surprise and happiness" upon receiving the honor.
The Nobel prize for economic sciences has been awarded every year since 1969, when it was established by Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden's central bank.
In 2009, the prize for economic sciences was awarded to two American economists: Indiana University Professor Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to receive the prize; and Oliver Williamson, a retired professor from the University of California, Berkely.
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