American economists Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in economics for their contributions to auction theory, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Monday.

Milgrom and Wilson, who are the two professors at Stanford University in California, were perceived for theoretical revelations that improved how auctions work. As indicated by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, they additionally designed auction formats for goods and services that are hard to sell in a traditional manner, for example, radio frequencies.

“This year’s Laureates in Economic Sciences started out with fundamental theory and later used their results in practical applications, which have spread globally. Their discoveries are of great benefit to society,” Peter Fredriksson, chair of the prize committee, said in a statement.

As indicated by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the economists created new arrangements for auctioning many interrelated objects for the benefit of a seller persuaded by doing useful for society instead of essentially accomplishing the highest cost conceivable.

In 1994, US authorities originally used one of their formats to sell bands of radio spectrum. Doing so guaranteed that citizens were profiting by the sale of radio frequencies that were claimed by the government yet of tremendous value to mobile network operators.

The prize for economics is authoritatively known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences. It was set up by Sweden’s central bank and has been awarded since 1969 in memory of industrialist Alfred Nobel.

Milgrom and Wilson will share 10 million Swedish kroner ($1.1 million) in prize cash.

In 2019, the economics prize was awarded to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for their work to lighten global poverty. Duflo, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was the most youthful individual and just the second woman to be awarded the prize.

A week ago, the World Food Program was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its endeavors to battle hunger and its “contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas.”