On Wednesday it was announced that Dale T. Mortensen, a Niels Bohr professor in economics at Aarhus University, will receive the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences together with his two colleagues Peter Diamond and Christopher Pissarides.

The three economists are honoured for their labour market research and for developing models explaining the relationship between unemployment, job vacancies and wages, and how these relationships are influenced by regulation and economic policy in general. One conclusion made by the trio is that more generous unemployment benefits lead to higher unemployment and longer search times.

“It has barely sunk in as I have hardly had any time to fully digest the news. But there is no doubt that receiving a Nobel Prize in recognition of one’s work is incredibly exciting and a very satisfactory feeling,” says Dale T. Mortensen, who was contacted by the Nobel Committee shortly before being due to give a lecture at Aarhus University.

Danish blood

Dale T. Mortensen, whose father was born in Denmark, is a professor at Northwestern University and first visited Aarhus University in the early 1980s. In 2006, he returned to take up a so-called Niels Bohr Visiting Professorship funded by the Danish National Research Foundation.

“The School of Economics and Management at Aarhus University has been my second home for the past 4-5 years, but our collaboration goes back a long way, and the group of labour market researchers here has been very supportive,” said a delighted Dale T. Mortensen.

Dean Svend Hylleberg originally had a hand in drafting the application for a Niels Bohr professorship for Dale T. Mortensen at the School of Economics and Management, and it was a clearly touched Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences who congratulated Dale T. Mortensen:

“In our application to the Danish National Research Foundation we wrote that you might well be awarded the Nobel Prize one day, so it comes as no surprise. Over the years, you have contributed to creating an excellent research environment within the field of labour market economics at the School of Economics and Management, and we are very pleased at being able to learn from you,” said Svend Hylleberg.

The Rector of Aarhus University, Lauritz B. Holm-Nielsen, also praised the new Nobel Laureate:

“The Nobel Prize is highly deserved given Dale T. Mortensen’s excellent research from which Aarhus University has benefited greatly over the past almost 30 years, most recently by virtue of the Niels Bohr Visiting Professorship. I am proud that the academic environment at the School of Economics and Management is able to attract such absolutely top-class international researchers,” says Lauritz B. Holm-Nielsen, Rector of Aarhus University.

Research is ultimately a joint exercise
Dale T. Mortensen works within the field of labour market economics, macroeconomics and economic theory, and the School of Economics and Management is, among other things, known for a strong research tradition within labour market research. During his stays in Denmark, Dale T. Mortensen has emphasised his collaboration with students and PhD students, and he once said:

“Research is ultimately a joint exercise, and very few researchers produce groundbreaking results all by themselves. It is therefore important to gather together competent researchers who can pool their resources, build on each other’s results and ask the key questions in a dynamic interchange.”

Dale T. Mortensen’s Niels Bohr Professorship expires next year, but the 71-year-old researcher, now also a Nobel Laureate, has no plans to stop working, and the School of Economics and Management therefore hopes to be able to continue the collaboration with him.

“I will officially become Professor Emeritus next year, and I will probably not be doing a lot of teaching, but I do have plans to write an article or two once in a while. It has, after all, become a bit of a habit,” says Dale T. Mortensen with a warm smile at the press conference in Aarhus.