罗杰·梅尔森

生平

迈尔森把他自己的工作描述为探求“如何在社会中获得信息，以实现资源的分配”。一方面他可以把博弈论的教材写得艰涩难懂，但另一方面又能把这些艰涩的抽象理论转化为非常实用的现实问题，为美国解决了很多经济难题。例如在世界经济学界赫赫有名的加州电力危机：20世纪80年代，美国加州的电力改革要打破电力垄断的弊端，可是在电力行业实行完全竞争又不可能，最好的办法是寡头垄断；迈尔森用“机制设计”理论，运用博弈论很好地为加州电力改革设计了方案，这个方案运行至今，效应良好。此外，迈尔森还解决了美国医学院的招生难题。美国医生是高收入群体，但是医学院大多是私立的，若不控制医学院学生人数，就不能保证医生的质量和高收入。美国政府把迈尔森的“机制设计”原理引入相关法律，限制了医学院招生的数量。近些年来，他又把研究目光转向了如何重建伊拉克政府。

Roger Bruce Myerson (born March 29, 1951) is an American economist and a Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. In 2007, he was the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Leonid Hurwicz and Eric Maskin for "having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory". He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.

In particular, by extending the revelation principle to accommodate incomplete information environments, Myerson proved that complex regulatory and auction environments, as treated in auction theory, can be reduced to incentive-compatible direct mechanisms.

Biography

Roger Myerson was born in 1951 in Boston into a Jewish family. 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 entitled 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 to 1986 and from 2000 to 2001. He became professor of economics at Chicago in 2001. Currently, he is the inaugural David L. Pearson Distinguished Service Professor of Global Conflict Studies at the University of Chicago and also appears in the directory of Peter Thiel's Dialog organization.

Awards and honors

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.

Memberships and honors

Myerson is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Philosophical Society. He is a Fellow of the Game Theory Society, and serves as an advisory board member on the International Journal of Game Theory.……

Personal life

In 1980, Myerson married Regina (née Weber) and the couple had two children, Daniel and Rebecca. His daughter, Rebecca, is a health economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Publications

Game theory and mechanism design

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:

"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.

Political views

In June 2024, 16 Nobel Prize in Economics laureates, including Myerson, signed an open letter arguing that Donald Trump's fiscal and trade policies coupled with efforts to limit the Federal Reserve's independence would reignite inflation in the United States.

Concepts named after him

• Myerson–Satterthwaite theorem
• Myerson mechanism
• Myerson ironing
• Myerson-regular distribution
• Myerson value