Robert Schlaifer

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Robert O. Schlaifer (1915 – 24 July 1994) was a pioneer of Bayesian decision theory. At the time of his death he was William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration Emeritus of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

Schlaifer made an important contribution to Bayesian decision theory. His work and his character are described in the following appreciations.

In 1992 the Decision Analysis Society awarded Schlaifer the Frank P. Ramsey Medal for distinguished contributions to the field of decision analysis. In making the award Bob Winkler noted Schlaifer's pioneering efforts in decision analysis.

His 1959 book, Probability and Statistics for Business Decisions, was a landmark effort, coming only five years after L. J. Savage, in his classic Foundations of Statistics, presented a development of subjective probability and utility but then inexplicably reverted to minimax arguments in the latter part of the book. Schlaifer, with no formal training in statistics or mathematical modeling, got it right and took the first steps toward bridging the theory/practice gap.

Winkler also quoted the following assessment from Howard Raiffa, who worked with Schlaifer and was the recipient of the first Ramsey Medal in 1984:

“The basic ideas of statistical decision theory were conceived by (Schlaifer) independently of the work of L. J. Savage or de Finetti, and early on he saw that those ideas were broadly applicable to problems in decision making under uncertainty. He was a pioneer in the practical assessment of subjective probabilities and utilities… (Schlaifer) influenced my intellectual development more than any other individual — more than Abraham Wald or von Neumann or Savage or Arrow.”

In the preface to the second 1971 edition of Foundations of Statistics Savage wrote

This is a welcome opportunity to say that his [Schlaifer's] ideas were developed wholly independently of the present book, and indeed of other personalistic literature. They are in full harmony with the ideas of this book but are more down to earth and less spellbound by tradition.

Schlaifer's book with John W. Pratt and Raiffa was published posthumously and his co-authors wrote this dedication:

Robert O. Schlaifer (1915 – 1994): An original, deep, creative, indefatigable, persistent, versatile, demanding, sometimes irascible scholar, who was an inspiration to us both.

[edit] Books by Robert Schlaifer

Probability and statistics for business decisions. An introduction to managerial economics under uncertainty New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1959
Applied statistical decision theory (with Howard Raiffa) Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1961.
Introduction to statistical decision theory John W. Pratt, Howard Raiffa, Robert Schlaifer preliminary edition, 1965. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995.