The Nobel prize in economics has been awarded to two American professors – Alvin Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley.

They’ve been cited for their theory of “stable allocations and the practice of market design.”

The winners receive about $1.2-million (Canadian).  

The economics selection follows last week’s awarding of the Nobel Peace prize to the European Union.

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was the last of the 2012 Nobel awards to be announced.

It’s not technically a Nobel Prize, because unlike the five other awards it wasn’t established in the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist also known for inventing dynamite.

The economics prize was created by the Swedish central bank in Nobel’s memory in 1968, and has been handed out with the other prizes ever since.