French economist Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Economics Monday for his research on market power and regulation.

According to the media statement of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Tirole is “one of the most influential economists of our time” whose major contribution has been to clarify “how to understand and regulate industries with a few powerful firms.”

“Many industries are dominated by a small number of large firms or a single monopoly. Left unregulated, such markets often produce socially undesirable results – prices higher than those motivated by costs, or unproductive firms that survive by blocking the entry of new and more productive ones.

From the mid-1980s and onwards, Jean Tirole has breathed new life into research on such market failures. His analysis of firms with market power provides a unified theory with a strong bearing on central policy questions: how should the government deal with mergers or cartels, and how should it regulate monopolies,” according to the press release.

“In a series of articles and books, Jean Tirole has presented a general framework for designing such policies and applied it to a number of industries, ranging from telecommunications to banking. Drawing on these new insights, governments can better encourage powerful firms to become more productive and, at the same time, prevent them from harming competitors and customers,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (officially Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) was not among the Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895.

It was added in 1968 by Sweden's central bank but it carries the same prize money, SEK 10 M, and is awarded at the same ceremony with the other Nobel Prizes.

Tirole is to receive the award at a ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

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