Robert Mundell, whose research on monetary and fiscal policy under different exchange rate regimes pointed the way to Europe's economic and monetary union, won the 1999 Nobel economics prize yesterday.

"Robert Mundell has established the foundation for the theory which dominates practical policy considerations of monetary and fiscal policy in open economies," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in awarding the prize, worth nearly $1 million (€930,000). Mr Mundell, born in Canada in 1932, teaches at Columbia University, New York, and has long been considered a contender for the world's top economics honour.