The 2010 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded Monday to three economists from the United States and Britain "for their analysis of markets with search frictions."

Americans Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen, and Christopher Pissarides, born in Cyprus and now working in Britain, shared the laurel, said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The trio will equally share the prize of 10 million Swedish kronor (1.5 million U.S. dollars).

This year's economics award is about markets where sellers and buyers have difficulty in finding each other, the academy said.

The economics award, established in 1968 and officially called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the last of the six prizes announced this year. It was not part of the original crop of Nobel Prizes set out in Nobel's will.

In 2009, the prize was awarded to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson, both from the United States.