Bengt Nyman from Vaxholm, Sweden · CC BY 2.0

Hart shared the 2016 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Bengt Holmström for work on contract theory — how to design agreements between parties, such as employers and employees or firms and suppliers, when neither side can fully specify or verify every future contingency in advance. The framework he helped build now underpins how economists think about corporate governance, ownership structure and the boundaries of the firm. He teaches at Harvard, where he holds the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professorship.