Robert Wilson (left) and Paul Milgrom, at Stanford, Calif., October 12, 2020. -

Andrew Brodhead / Stanford University / AFP

Each year, the Nobel Committee calls the various winners to tell them the good news before publishing their names.

But this year, impossible to reach the new Nobel Prize in economics.

8,000 km away, in the middle of the night in the United States, Paul Milgrom was simply ... sleeping, says CNN.

It was his neighbor, and co-Nobel winner, Robert Wilson, who was commissioned to tell him.

Posted to Twitter by Stanford University, CCTV recordings from the house show the scene.

Just after 2 a.m. in California on Monday, economics professor Robert Wilson, 83, knocked on the door of his colleague Paul Milgrom to tell him that their research had won the Nobel Prize in economics.

The #NobelPrize committee couldn't reach Paul Milgrom to share the news that he won, so his fellow winner and neighbor Robert Wilson knocked on his door in the middle of the night.

pic.twitter.com/MvhxZcgutZ

- Stanford University (@Stanford) October 12, 2020

"Wow ... OK"

“Paul,” Wilson said, ringing the intercom and knocking several times.

Seconds later, Milgrom finally replies: “Hello?

".

“Paul, it's Robert Wilson.

You won the Nobel Prize, ”announces his neighbor.

“So they're trying to reach you.

But they can't do it.

I don't think they have your number.

"Mary Wilson, Robert's wife, takes over:" We gave them your phone number. "

Response from Milgrom: “I won?

Wow… OK ”.

A few minutes earlier, the Nobel committee also had trouble reaching Robert Wilson, who had unplugged his phone.

It was through his wife Mary that they managed to reach him.

Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson won the prestigious award for "improving auction theory and inventing new auction formats", especially in sophisticated areas, "for the benefit of sellers, buyers and taxpayers around the world", said the jury of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The duo, who were one of the favorites for the award this year, are best known for being behind the concept for the sale of telecommunications frequency band licenses in the United States, prompting the jury to salute the fact that 'they had thus worked both in theory and in practice.

The work of the economists, both teachers at Stanford and neighboring countries, has also been used in other applications, such as the allocation of landing slots at airports.

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