A former Harvard professor was one of two economists awarded the Nobel Prize in economics yesterday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Robert W. Fogel, of the University of Chicago, and Douglass C. North, of Washington University in St. Louis, will share the $825,000 prize for their work in economic history.

Professor of Economics Claudia D. Goldin said she filled in for Fogel when he first arrived at Harvard in 1975 because he "actually spent his first year at Oxford."

"So I got to fill in for him, and teach his course, with all the students who were eager to take his class," Goldin said. "It was great."

Fogel applied economic principles to slavery in 19th-century America. His argument that slavery was economically efficient drew criticism when it was first published in the early 1970s.

But both Bell Professor of Economics Jeffrey G. Williamson and Goldin, Harvard's leading economic historians, defended his scholarship as objective.

North, the other winner, is best known for his studies of institutional, industrial and organizational economics.

"While Fogel applies economics to history, North applies history to economics," Williamson said.

Fogel became a professor at Harvard in order to work with Coolidge Professor of History David S. Landes to develop quantitative methods of reasoning in the History Department, Goldin said.

He left Harvard for the University of Chicago in 1981. The award to Fogel marks the fourth consecutive year that a Chicago economist has won a Nobel.

University of Chicago Professor of EconomicsDavid Goinn, a former student of Fogel's, said hespoke with Fogel yesterday.

"He is very pleased, he regards it asrecognition for renewing the field of economichistory, and as recognition for his work," Goinnsaid.

"It is a wonderful thing," Goinn said. "It is agreat tribute to Bob, it is a great tribute toeconomic history, and it is a great tribute to theUniversity of Chicago." Goldin said she was"ecstatic" about the announcement.

"The first time the award was given incliometrics, was in the early 1970s, to [Harvardprofessor] Simon Kuznets, and there hasn't beenone since," she said.

"Cliometrics" is a word combining the name ofthe goddess of history, Clio, with metrics, thestudy of measure, Goldin said. A group of "youngturks" in the 1960s, including Fogel and North,coined the term when they found their field had noother name, Goldin said.

"Economic history is the study of history usingthe analytical tools, models, and methods ofeconomics and econometrics," said Goldin,currently on leave from Harvard as a visitingfellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington