Leonid Hurwicz

Biography

Leonid Hurwicz was born on August 21, 1917, in Moscow, to Polish-Jewish parents and grew up in Warsaw, Poland. He studied at the University of Warsaw's Faculty of Law and Administration, then at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Hurwicz became a refugee and eventually came to the United States, where he spent the rest of his career transforming the field of economics.

In 1941, Hurwicz worked as a research assistant for Paul Samuelson at MIT and for Oskar Lange at the University of Chicago. From 1942 to 1946, he was a research associate at the Cowles Commission, which played a key role in mathematical economics and econometrics at that time. In 1946, he became an associate professor of economics at Iowa State College. In 1951, he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota, becoming a Regents' Professor of Economics in 1969 and Curtis L. Carlson Professor of Economics in 1989. He was a Regents' Professor Emeritus when he died on June 24, 2008, in Minneapolis.

Hurwicz is best known for creating the concept of incentive compatibility and for his key work in mechanism design theory. Mechanism design, sometimes called reverse game theory, tackles how to build economic systems or rules so that individuals, each acting in their own self-interest, can collectively achieve a desired social outcome. His idea that such systems must consider participants' private information and motivations changed how economists view markets, organizations, and institutions.

Hurwicz was also one of the first economists to see the importance of game theory and to apply it systematically to economic questions. His models for studying interactions between individuals and institutions became essential tools in modern economics. In 2007, he received the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, along with Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson, for his groundbreaking work in mechanism design theory. At 90, he was one of the oldest people to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Throughout his career, Hurwicz earned many honors for his scholarship. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1945, was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1947, became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1953, was honored with the National Medal of Science in 1990, and was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. He also received honorary degrees from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the University of Bielefeld, and Keio University, and gave the notable Fisher-Schultz Lecture.