STOCKHOLM, Oct. 14 -- The Nobel prize in economics went on Monday to two Americans whose field exists because an oil shock broke the models that came before it, and the committee chose to say, in announcing the award, that the work helps governments cope with energy crises.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Robert E. Hall, an emeritus professor at Stanford University, and Michael Woodford, a professor of political economy at Columbia University, for what it called the "microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation." The prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor, about $1.2 million, shared equally between them. It was the last Nobel announced this year.

The timing is pointed. Oil has been the dominant macroeconomic ...