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The prize, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the last of this year's crop of Nobels and sees the winners share a sum of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.14 million).

Canada-born Card took half the prize "for his empirical contributions to labour economics", the academy said. Angrist and Imbens shared the other half "for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships".

The prestigious prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel.

They have been awarded since 1901, though the economics prize - created through a donation from Sweden's central bank on its 300th anniversary - is a later addition that was first handed out in 1969.

While the economics award has tended to live in the shadow of the often already famous winners of the prizes for peace and literature, laureates over the years include a number of hugely influential economists, such as the Austrian-British Friedrich August von Hayek and American Milton Friedman.