STOCKHOLM — A U.S.-based economist has won the Nobel prize for economics for pioneering research that showed an increase in minimum wage doesn't lead to less hiring. His work also showed that immigrants do not lower pay for native-born workers.

The work by David Card of the University of California, Berkely, challenges two commonly held ideas on the field of economics, meaning his theories could reshape economic policy around the world.

Two other economists — Joshua Angrist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Guido Imbens from Stanford University — shared the award Monday for creating a way to study Card's theories.

Angrist and Imbens developed natural experiments — situations that arise from real life — that attempted to prove Card's theories.

"Card's studies of core questions for society and Angrist and Imbens' methodological contributions have shown that natural experiments are a rich source of knowledge," Peter Fredriksson, chair of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee, said in a statement. "Their research has substantially improved our ability to answer key causal questions, which has been of great benefit to society."

In 2020, Americans Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson were awarded the Nobel committee's prize for economics for work that presented "improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats."