Friedrich August Hayek (8 May 1899 - 23 March 1992), born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism. In 1974, Hayek shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (with his political rival, Gunnar Myrdal) for his "pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and... penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." He considered the efficient allocation of capital to be the most important factor leading to sustainable and optimal GDP growth, and warned of harms from monetary authority manipulation of interest rates. Interest rates, he wrote, should be set naturally by equilibrium between consumption of goods or capital stock.