Your trusted source

US economist Richard Thaler, one of the founding fathers of behavioural economics, has won this year's Nobel Prize for Economics, according to BBC.

Prof Thaler, of the University of Chicago Booth, co-wrote the global best seller Nudge, which looked at how people make bad or irrational choices.

Judges said he had demonstrated how "nudging" - a term he coined - may help people exercise better self-control.

He will receive 9 million Swedish krona (£850,000) from the committee.

"I will try to spend it as irrationally as possible!" the 72 year-old economist said.

Prof Thaler's work led to the UK setting up a nudge unit under former prime minister David Cameron. It was launched in 2010 to find innovative ways of changing public behaviour.

In particular, his work looked at how to "nudge" people into doing more long-term planning, such as saving for a pension.