In 1994, bequests to Northwestern University from the late Erwin Esser Nemmers, a former member of the Northwestern University faculty, and his brother, the late Frederic E. Nemmers, led to the establishment of four endowed professorships in the Kellogg School of Management, and biennial prizes in economics, mathematics, and more recently musical composition. The Nemmers family ran a church music publishing house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The prize in economics is named in honor of the Nemmers’ father.

The Nemmers’ hoped that their prizes would carry with them the prestige attached to the Nobel prizes. They are designed to recognize "work of lasting significance" and in particular, recognize "major contributions to new knowledge or the development of significant new modes of analysis."

The Nemmers prize is awarded every two years. The winners, in chronological order, are: Peter Diamond, Thomas Sargent, Robert Aumann, Daniel McFadden, Edward Prescott, Ariel Rubinstein, Lars Peter Hansen, and Paul Milgrom. Professors Aumann, McFadden and Prescott were subsequently awarded The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

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