Two American professors will sharethe twenty eleven Nobel Prize in economics.Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretaryof the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,announced the winners this week.STAFFAN NORMARK: "The Royal Swedish Academy of Scienceshas decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prizein Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, 2011,to Professor Thomas J. Sargentat New York University, New York, USAand Professor Christopher A. Simsat Princeton University, Princeton, USA."Professors Sims and Sargentare both sixty-eight years old.They are being honored for work they didin the nineteen seventies and eighties.But their research has been and remains importantto economic policy in many countries.This is especially true in a time when debt in Europe and other problems around the worldhave hurt economic growth.The Nobel committee recognized the two professorsfor their work in showing how policy decisionscan affect the health of economies.Both men have studied how actions,like raising interest rates or cutting taxes,affect things like economic growth and inflation.Professor Sargent studied periods of high inflationin several European countries in the nineteen hundreds.His work suggested that it was importantfor governments and central banksto keep inflation low and interest rates stable.Professor Sims suggested a new wayof studying economic information over time.He has used a tool of economic analysis,called a vector auto-regression model.Such models provide ways to examine issueslike whether growth in the money supplyhelps to predict inflation.Christopher Sims told reporters by telephonewhy his work and the work of Thomas Sargentis so important today.CHRISTOPHER SIMS: "I think the methodsthat I have used and Tom has developedare central to finding our way out of this mess.I think they point to a way to try to unravelwhy our serious problems developand new research using these methodsmay help us lead us out of it."Professors Sargent and Sims will share prize moneyworth about one point five million dollars.The prize is officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prizein Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.It was first given in nineteen sixty-nineand is the only Nobel Prize not established by Alfred Nobel.And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report.Mary Motta and Mil Arcega contributed to this report.Find more business news along with transcriptsand MP3s at 51voa.com.And follow us on Facebook and Twitterat VOA Learning English.