The Nobel Foundation’s 50-year confidentiality rule for economics nominations leaves no public record that explains the absence of an Africa-based laureate.
The Academy awarded the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel on Oct. 12 to Robert E. Hall of Stanford University and Michael Woodford of Columbia University. Its citation recognized their work “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation.” The prize totaled 12 million Swedish kronor, divided equally between the two economists.
The Academy sends nomination invitations to thousands of specially selected professors and other scholars worldwide. Prize committee members and previous laureates may also nominate candidates. Nominee names and related information are kept confidential for 50 years. The rules account for geographic representation in selecting some university chairs to receive invitations, but the public record gives no regional count of nominees.
Research on academic publishing offers a separate view of representation in economics. Grieve Chelwa’s 2021 study in Economy and Society examined leading journals that regularly publish on Africa. Among papers about Africa published from 2005 through 2015, 25% had at least one author based on the continent. Researchers based in Africa held 3% of editorial-board positions at the journals studied.
A project by the Center for Effective Global Action and the Network of Impact Evaluation Researchers in Africa reported that scholarships and program costs were the most important factor in doctoral-study decisions for 90% of surveyed master’s students. Among African scholars surveyed, 64% ranked submission fees as the most critical factor in choosing where to publish, and 68% said paywalls prevented access to literature. The organizers said respondents were recruited largely through networks with comparatively strong access to research opportunities. The findings concern research careers and publishing, not Nobel nominations or selections.
In an Oct. 25 opinion column for Premium Times, Tope Fasua argued for more research grounded in African economies, including work on informal employment, economic history and data gaps. ILOSTAT reported that informal employment made up 87.6% of jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2025, compared with 57.9% globally. Those figures measure employment, not the value of informal economic output, and do not establish a connection to Nobel recognition.
Sir Arthur Lewis shared the economics prize in 1979. Nobel records list Castries, Saint Lucia, as his birthplace and Princeton University as his affiliation at the time. Princeton has described Lewis as the first person of African descent to receive a Nobel Prize in a field other than literature or peace.
