The three "have laid the foundation for the current understanding of asset prices. It relies in part on fluctuations in risk and risk attitudes, and in part on behavioural biases and market frictions," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Fama and Hansen are both professors at the University of Chicago, while Shiller is a professor at Yale University in Connecticut.
The economics prize is the only Nobel not originally included in the last will and testament of the prizes' creator, Swedish scientist and philanthropist Alfred Nobel.
It was established in 1968 by the Swedish central bank to celebrate its tri-centenary, and first awarded in 1969. The other prizes have been awarded since 1901.
Americans have dominated the list of economics laureates, with 17 out of 20 laureates coming from the US in the past 10 years.
Last year, US scholars Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley won for their work on the functioning of markets and how best to match supply and demand.
The economics prize winds up this year's Nobel season, marked by awards in physics to the fathers of the Higgs boson, the literature prize to Canadian short story author Alice Munro, and the peace prize to the UN-backed Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemicals Weapons.