Roger Myerson

Roger Myerson
Born	(1951-03-29) March 29, 1951 Boston, Massachusetts
Nationality	United States
Institution	University of Chicago Northwestern University
Field	Game theory
Alma mater	Harvard University (AB, SM, PhD)
Doctoral advisor	Kenneth Arrow
Doctoral students	Scott E. Page
Contributions	Mechanism design
Awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2007)
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Roger Bruce Myerson (born 1951) is an American economist and professor at the University of Chicago. He holds the title of The Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College and Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies. In 2007, he was the winner of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel with Leonid Hurwicz and Eric Maskin for "having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory."

Biography

Roger Myerson was born in 1951 in Boston. He attended Harvard University, where he 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.

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. 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.

Bank of Sweden Nobel Memorial 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.

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.

Personal life

In 1980, Myerson married Regina (Weber) and the couple had two children, Daniel and Rebecca.

Publications

Game theory and mechanism design

• "Graphs and Cooperation in Games". Mathematics of Operations Research. INFORMS. 2 (3): 225–229. August 1977. doi:10.1287/moor.2.3.225.
• "Two-Person Bargaining Problems and Comparable Utility". Econometrica. Wiley. 45 (7): 1631–1637. October 1977. doi:10.2307/1913955. JSTOR 1913955.
• "Refinements of the Nash Equilibrium Concept". International Journal of Game Theory. Springer. 7 (2): 73–80. June 1978. doi:10.1007/BF01753236.
• "Incentive Compatibility and the Bargaining Problem". Econometrica. Wiley. 47: 61–73. January 1979. doi:10.2307/1912346. JSTOR 1912346.
• "Optimal Auction Design". Mathematics of Operations Research. INFORMS. 6 (1): 58–73. February 1981. doi:10.1287/moor.6.1.58.
• "Mechanism Design by an Informed Principal". Econometrica. Wiley. 51 (6): 1767–1797. November 1983. doi:10.2307/1912116. JSTOR 1912116.
• "Two-Person Bargaining Problems with Incomplete Information". Econometrica. Wiley. 52: 461–487. 1984. doi:10.2307/1911499. JSTOR 1911499.
• "Bayesian Equilibrium and Incentive Compatibility," in Hurwicz, Leonid; Schmeidler, David; Sonnenschein, Hugo, eds. (2005). Social goals and social organization : essays in memory of Elisha Pazner. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 229–259. ISBN 9780521023955.

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. He also served on the editorial board of the International Journal of Game Theory for ten years.

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. American Economic Association. 9 (1): 77–89. Winter 1995. doi:10.1257/jep.9.1.77. JSTOR 2138356.
• "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. ScienceDirect. 43 (4–6): 671–697. April 1999. doi:10.1016/S0014-2921(98)00089-0.

His recent work on democratization has raised critical questions about American policy in occupied Iraq:

• "Fundamentals of social choice theory". Quarterly Journal of Political Science. Now Publishing Inc. 8 (3): 305–337. June 2013. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.297.6781. doi:10.1561/100.00013006.

Books

• Game theory: analysis of conflict. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1991. ISBN 9780674728615.
• Probability models for economic decisions. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Brooke/Cole. 2005. ISBN 9780534423810.

Concepts named after him

• Myerson–Satterthwaite theorem
• Myerson mechanism
• Myerson ironing

See also

• List of economists
• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

External links

• Myerson Nobel Prize lecture
• Webpage at the University of Chicago
• ABC News Chicago interview
• Roger Myerson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• The scientific background to the 2007 Nobel prize: Mechanism Design Theory
• Myerson participated in panel discussion, The Global Economic Crisis: What Does It Mean for U.S. National Security? at the Pritzker Military Museum & Library on April 2, 2009

Awards
Preceded by Edmund S. Phelps	Laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 2007 Served alongside: Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin	Succeeded by Paul Krugman