Roger Myerson

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Roger Myerson

Born March 29, 1951 (1951-03-29) (age 57)
Boston, Massachusetts
Residence Flag of the United States USA
Nationality Flag of the United States American
Fields Economist
Institutions University of Chicago
Northwestern University
Alma mater Harvard University
Doctoral advisor Kenneth Arrow
Known for Game theory, Mechanism design
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Economics (2007)

Roger Bruce Myerson (born March 29, 1951) is an American economist and co-winner, with Leonid Hurwicz and Eric Maskin, of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory." He has made contributions as an economist, as an applied mathematician, and as a political scientist.

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[edit] Biography

Roger Myerson was born on March 29, 1951 to a Jewish family. He attended Harvard University, where he received his A.B., S.M. (1973), and Ph.D. (1976), all in applied mathematics. From 1976 to 2001, he was a professor of economics at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he conducted much of his Nobel-winning research.[1] Currently, he is the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.

[edit] Contributions

Among his scientific contributions to game theory and mechanism design, the following are noteworthy:

  • "Graphs and Cooperation in Games," Mathematics of Operations Research 2 (1977), 225-229.
  • "Two-Person Bargaining Problems and Comparable Utility," Econometrica 45 (1977), 1631-1637.
  • "Refinements of the Nash Equilibrium Concept," International Journal of Game Theory 7 (1978), 73-80.
  • "Incentive Compatibility and the Bargaining Problem," Econometrica 47 (1979), 61-73.
  • "Optimal Auction Design," Mathematics of Operations Research 6 (1981), 58-73.
  • "Mechanism Design by an Informed Principal," Econometrica 51 (1983), 1767-1797.
  • "Two-Person Bargaining Problems with Incomplete Information," Econometrica 52 (1984), 461-487.
  • "Bayesian Equilibrium and Incentive Compatibility," in Social Goals and Social Organization, edited by L. Hurwicz, D. Schmeidler, and Hugo Sonnenschein, Cambridge University Press (1985), 229-259.

He wrote a general textbook on game theory in 1991, and has also written on the history of game theory, including his review of the origins and significance of noncooperative game theory.[2]

Myerson has worked on economic analysis of political institutions and written several major survey papers:

  • "Analysis of Democratic Institutions: Structure, Conduct, and Performance," Journal of Economic Perspectives 9:1 (1995), 77-89.
  • "Economic Analysis of Political Institutions: An Introduction," Advances in Economic Theory and Econometrics: Theory and Applications, volume 1, edited by D. Kreps and K. Wallis (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pages 46-65.
  • "Theoretical Comparisons of Electoral Systems," European Economic Review 43 (1999), 671-697.

His recent work on democratization has raised critical questions about American policy in occupied Iraq.[3]

[edit] Books

Myerson has published the following books:

  • Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict, Harvard University Press, 1991.
  • Probability Models for Economic Decisions, Duxbury Press, 2005.

[edit] References

  1. ^ JUF News: Nobel Prize winnershave Jewish, Chicago connections
  2. ^ Myerson, Roger B. (1999), “Nash Equilibrium and the History of Economic Theory”, Journal of Economic Literature 37: 1067-1082 
  3. ^ Myerson, Roger B. (2006), “Federalism and Incentives for Success of Democracy”, Quarterly Journal of Political Science 1: 3-23 

[edit] External links


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