PALO ALTO, Calif. - What happens when the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm is trying to tell you that you won the Nobel prize, but you're sleeping thousands of miles away in California?Well, good thing that two Stanford professors who won the prize in economics on Monday are also neighbors in Palo Alto.
Both Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson won the Nobel Prize in economics on Monday for “improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats.”However, only Wilson was up for the call.
Milgrom was asleep and apparently, the prize winners didn't have his phone number.Good thing the two professors are also neighbors.Wilson and his wife went over to Milgrom's home in the dark to alert him of the good news.