Eva Meyersson Milgrom · Public domain

Paul Milgrom won the 2020 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Robert Wilson, for improvements to auction theory and new auction formats. The work wasn't purely academic: Milgrom and Wilson designed the FCC auction protocol used to allocate cellular frequencies among phone companies, and Milgrom later led the team behind the 2016–17 broadcast incentive auction that reallocated TV spectrum for wireless broadband.