Russian-born U.S. economist oldest-ever Nobel winner

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Economist Leonid Hurwicz thought he was too old to win the Nobel Prize at age 90 -- until his telephone began ringing on Monday morning.

"I thought that my time perhaps had passed already," the retired Russian-born U.S. economist said in a telephone interview from his home in Minneapolis. "It's a pleasant surprise and the money for a retired person would help."

Hurwicz, the oldest recipient of a Nobel prize, won the 2007 award along with two other Americans for laying the foundations of an economic theory that determines when markets are working effectively.

However, the professor emeritus of economics at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis said he had never received a degree in the field.

"Whatever economics I learned I learned by listening and learning," he said.

Hurwicz said he has several honorary degrees, but the only degree he had when he came to the United States in 1940 was a law degree from the University of Warsaw.

Born in Russia in 1917, the year of the communist revolution, Hurwicz fled to Poland with his family during World War One.

"I left Russia before I could walk and spent my young years in high school and university in Poland," he said.