Nobel winner to get honorary Minn. degree

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A Nobel Prize-winning economist is receiving an honorary degree from the University of Minnesota.

Thomas Sargent will receive the degree Monday -- after he presents a lecture about monetary unions.

Sargent was a longtime faculty member at the University of Minnesota and is currently a professor at New York University.

He and former University of Minnesota professor Christopher Sims received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2011 for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy, and for their development of the "rational expectations" model.

Rational expectations found that since consumers and investors adjust their behavior when the government shifts policies, those policies rarely have the effect they intend.

Work on the model was largely done when Sargent and Sims were at the University of Minnesota.

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