Yale professor Robert Shiller is one of three Americans to win the Nobel prize for economics on Monday for developing methods to study trends in stock, bond and house prices — work that has changed the way people invest.

Eugene Fama showed in the 1960s how hard it is to predict markets in the short run, while Shiller, 67, two decades later showed how it can be done in the long run. Lars Peter Hansen developed a statistical method to test theories of asset pricing.

For their separate research, the three economists shared the $1.2 million prize — the last of this year's Nobel awards to be announced.

"Their methods have shaped subsequent research in the field and their findings have been highly influential both academically and practically," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Fama, 74, and Hansen, 60, are associated with the University of Chicago.