France's Jean Tirole wins Nobel Economics Prize

Stockholm

FRENCH economist Jean Tirole won the Nobel Economics Prize on Monday, for his analysis of big companies, market power and regulation, the Royal Academy of Sciences said. Mr Tirole, the second Frenchman to be honoured this year, is "one of the most influential economists of our time", the jury said.

"Many industries are dominated by a small number of large firms or a single monopoly," the jury said of the economist, from Toulouse 1 Capitole University.

"Left unregulated, such markets often produce socially undesirable results - prices higher than those motivated by costs, or unproductive firms that survive by blocking the en…