Presently working as an economic expert at a Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and a Prof at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business, he is a major figure in macroeconomics, especially the theories of business cycles and general equilibrium. Inside his "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," published inside 1977 with Finn E. Kydland, he analyzed whether central banks should have strict numerical targets or be allowed to use their discretion in setting monetary policy. He is too easily known for his act on the Hodrick-Prescott Filter, used to smooth fluctuations around the period series.

Inside 1962, Prescott received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Swarthmore College, where he was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. He so received a master's degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1963 and a Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University in 1967.

Awards, fellowships
Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (2004) Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics, Northwestern University (2002) Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1992) Fellow, Econometric Society (1980) Alexander Henderson Award, Carnegie Mellon (1967)