Eric S. Maskin
Eric S. Maskin
Eric Stark Maskin (born December 12, 1950) is an American economist and 2007 Nobel laureate together with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory." Eric was born in New York City, New York to a non-religious Jewish family, and grew up in Alpine, New Jersey where at the local high school he came to love mathematics. Thus it was natural for him to go on to pursue a math degree at Harvard University where he stayed on for a PhD in Applied Math with Kenneth Arrow. The degree had all the flexibility that allowed him to focus on economics. While still a graduate student he went to Europe and studied at Cambridge. Maskin has worked in diverse areas of economic theory, such as game theory, the economics of incentives, and contract theory. He is particularly well known for his papers on mechanism design/implementation theory and dynamic games. His current research projects include comparing different electoral rules, examining the causes of inequality and studying coalition formation. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Econometric Society, and the European Economic Association, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He was president of the Econometric Society in 2003.
