(JTA) — American-Jewish economist Oliver Hart, a professor of economics at Harvard University, and Bengt Holmstrom of Finland, a professor of economics and management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were awarded the 2016 Nobel Economics Prize.

The prize was awarded on Monday for their work on contract theory, which studies how contracts allow people to deal with conflicting interests.

Hart, 68, did his Nobel-winning work in the 1980s, according to the academy, and Holmstrom did his in the 1970s.

Hart is the son of the late Philip D’Arcy Hart, who died ten years ago at the age of 106 and who was a leading British medical researcher and pioneer in tuberculosis treatment. He is descended from a prominent London Jewish family, including his great-grandfather, an Orthodox Jew named Samuel Montagu, who was a member of the House of Commons for 15 years until 1900 and then received a peerage becoming the 1st Baron Swaythling. Hart’s mother is Ruth Meyer, a medical gynecologist.

He is married to Rita Goldberg, a Harvard literature professor and author of the second-generation Holocaust memoir “Motherland: Growing Up With the Holocaust.”

Hart and Holmstrom will split the eight million kronor, or $924,000, prize.