Academic Angus Deaton has won the Nobel memorial prize in economics for ''his analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare''.

The 69-year-old, who was born in Edinburgh in 1945, now works at Princeton University in the US.

Prof Deaton said he found out about the award in an early-morning phone call from the Nobel committee.

"If you're my age, and you've been working for a long time, you know this is a possibility," he said.

"But you also know there are a huge number of people out there who deserve this. That lightning would strike me seemed like a very small probability event. It was sort of like, 'Oh my goodness, it's really happening'."

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the work for which Prof Deaton is being honoured revolves around three central questions: how do consumers distribute their spending among different goods; how much of society's income is spent and how much is saved; and how do we best measure and analyse welfare and poverty?

In a press conference following the announcement, he described himself as "someone who's concerned with the poor of the world and how people behave, and what gives them a good life".

Last year, French economist Jean Tirole won the eight million Swedish kronor (£637,000) award for his research on market power and regulation.

The economics award is not a Nobel Prize in the same sense as the others, which were created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in 1895. Sweden's central bank added the economics prize in 1968 as a memorial to Nobel.

The announcement concludes this year's presentations of winners, with the awards to be handed out on December 10 during ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo.

Alan Alexander, general secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), congratulated Prof Deaton on the award.

"Deaton's work, which focuses on poverty reduction and increased health and wellbeing, has been highly influential and the RSE is honoured to have him in its fellowship," he said.