FACTBOX: Who are the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics?

(Reuters) - Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson won the 2007 Nobel for economics "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory", the prize committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Monday.

Mechanism design theory, initiated by Hurwicz and further developed by Maskin and Myerson, has helped economists identify efficient trading mechanisms, regulation schemes and voting procedures. Mechanism design theory plays a central role in many areas of economics and parts of political science.

The economics prize is not part of the original crop of Nobel Prizes set out in Alfred Nobel's 1895 will. It was established in 1968 and is officially called The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Here are some key details on Hurwicz, Maskin and Myerson.

* LEONID HURWICZ

-- Hurwicz, born in August 1917, received his LL.M. from Warsaw University, Poland in 1938.

-- He has taught in the areas of theory, welfare economics, public economics, mechanisms and institutions, and mathematical economics.

-- Hurwicz's current research includes comparison and analysis of systems and techniques of economic organization, welfare economics, game-theoretic implementation of social choice goals, and modeling economic institutions.

-- He is the oldest person to be awarded a Nobel Prize.

* ERIC S. MASKIN:

-- Eric Maskin was born in New York City in December 1950. He received his A.B. degree in Mathematics from Harvard University in 1972, and his A.M. and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, also from Harvard in 1974 and 1976, respectively. He also holds an M.A. degree (honorary) from Cambridge University (1977).

-- Maskin has been the Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study since July 2000.

-- In the early 1980s, Maskin began a long collaboration with J. Riley on the subject of "optimal" auctions, exploring the question of what sort of auctions, or selling procedures, raise the most revenue.

-- Partly as a result of this work, Maskin was asked in the early 1990s to advise the Bank of Italy on possible reforms in their system of auctioning treasury bonds.

-- The author of numerous journal articles and book chapters, he is currently the editor of the journal Economics Letters.

* ROGER B. MYERSON:

-- Myerson was born in March 1951 in Boston, Massachusetts. He qualified with a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, at Harvard University, 1976, an A.B. summa cum laude, and S.M. in Applied Mathematics, from Harvard University in 1973.

-- He is presently the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.

Sources; Reuters/University of Minnesota/www.thirteen.org/bigideas/maskin.html/University of Chicago;