John Harsanyi

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John Charles Harsanyi (Hungarian: Harsányi János) (May 29, 1920 – August 9, 2000) was a Hungarian-Australian-American Professor of Economics, who contributed to the study of game theory in mathematics by developing the highly innovative analysis of games of incomplete information, so-called Bayesian games. He also made important contributions to the use of game theory and economic reasoning in moral and political philosophy as well as contributing to the study of equilibrium selection.

For his work, he was a co-recipient along with John Nash and Reinhard Selten of the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

Harsanyi was born in Budapest, Hungary and educated at the Lutheran Gymnasium in Budapest and then the University of Budapest (today: Eötvös Loránd University) where he first studied pharmacy and later earned a PhD in Philosophy with a minor in sociology. During the second World War, he escaped conscription into the Hungarian Army as a pharmacy student but was in 1944 compelled to join a forced labour unit comprised of Hungarian Jews on the Eastern Front. From September 1947 to June 1948, he served as a junior faculty member at the University Institute of Sociology. After moving to Sydney, Australia, he attained a Master of Economics at the University of Sydney in 1966. He later moved to the US, where he earned a second PhD in economics from Stanford University. He died in 2000 after a longtime professorship at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

[edit] External links

• Dr. Harsanyi's autobiography from the Nobel website
• News article remembering Dr. Harsanyi's life and career