Roger Myerson

Infobox Scientist
name = Roger Myerson


image_size = 180px
birth_date = birth date and age|1951|3|29
birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts
residence = Chicago, Illinois, USA
nationality = United States
field = Economics
work_places = University of Chicago
Northwestern University
alma_mater = Harvard University
doctoral_advisor = Kenneth Arrow
doctoral_students =
known_for = Game theory, Mechanism design
prizes = Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2007)

Roger Bruce Myerson (born March 29 1951) is an American economist and Nobel laureate recognised with Leonid Hurwicz and Eric Maskin for "having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory." [cite press release |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2007/press.html |title=The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2007 |date=October 15, 2007 |accessdate=2008-08-15 |publisher=Nobel Foundation] He has made contributions as an economist, as an applied mathematician, and as a political scientist.

Biography

Roger Myerson was born on March 29, 1951 to a Jewish family. He attended Harvard University, where received his A.B., summa cum laude, and S.M. in applied mathematics in 1973. He completed his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1976. His doctorate thesis was "A Theory of Cooperative Games".cite web |url=http://home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson/research/rbmvita.pdf |title=Curriculum Vitae of Roger Myerson |accessdate=2008-08-15 |publisher=]

From 1976 to 2001, Myerson was a professor of economics at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he conducted much of his Nobel-winning research. [ [http://www.juf.org/news/local.aspx?id=27784&terms=Roger+Myerson JUF News: Nobel Prize winnershave Jewish, Chicago connections] ] From 1978 to 1979, he was Visiting Researcher at Bielefeld University. He was Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago from 1985–86 and from 2000–01. He became Professor of Economics at Chicago in 2001. Currently, he is the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.

Nobel Prize

Myerson was one of the three winners of the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, the other two being Leonid Hurwicz of the University of Minnesota, and Eric Maskin of the Institute for Advanced Study. He was awarded the prize for his contributions to mechanism design theory.cite web |url=http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/071015.nobel.myerson.shtml |title=Roger Myerson wins 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics |date=2007-10-17 |publisher=University of Chicago |accessdate=2008-08-16]

Myerson made a path-breaking contribution to mechanism design theory when he discovered a fundamental connection between the allocation to be implemented and the monetary transfers needed to induce informed agents to reveal their information truthfully. Mechanism design theory allows for people to distinguish situations in which markets work well from those in which they do not. The theory has helped economists identify efficient trading mechanisms, regulation schemes, and voting procedures. Today, the theory plays a central role in many areas of economics and parts of political science.

Publications

;Game theory and mechanism design
* "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. [citation |last=Myerson | first=Roger B. | title=Nash Equilibrium and the History of Economic Theory | journal=Journal of Economic Literature 37 | volume= | issue= | year=1999 | pages=1067–1082 | url= ]

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. [citation | last=Myerson | first=Roger B. | title=Federalism and Incentives for Success of Democracy | journal=Quarterly Journal of Political Science 1 | volume= | issue= | year=2006 | pages=3–23 | url= ]

Bibliography

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

References

External links

* [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2007/myerson-lecture.html Myerson Nobel Prize lecture]
* [http://home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson Webpage at the University of Chicago]
* [http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=5707479 ABC News Chicago video interview]
*
* [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2007/ecoadv07.pdf The scientific background to the 2007 Nobel prize: Mechanism Design Theory]
* [http://ideas.repec.org/e/pmy13.html IDEAS/RePEc]