Leonid "Leo" Hurwicz (August 21, 1917 – June 24, 2008) was an American economist and mathematician. His nationality of origin was Polish. He was Jewish. He originated incentive compatibility and mechanism design, which show how desired outcomes are achieved in economics, social science and political science. Interactions of individuals and institutions, markets and trade are analyzed and understood today using the models Hurwicz developed.
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Leonid "Leo" Hurwicz (August 21, 1917 – June 24, 2008) was an American economist and mathematician. His nationality of origin was Polish. He was Jewish. He originated incentive compatibility and mechanism design, which show how desired outcomes are achieved in economics, social science and political science. Interactions of individuals and institutions, markets and trade are analyzed and understood today using the models Hurwicz developed.
Hurwicz was Regents' Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Minnesota. He was among the first economists to recognize the value of game theory and was a pioneer in its application. Hurwicz shared the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson for their work on mechanism design.
Hurwicz was born in Moscow, Russia to a Jewish family a few months before the October Revolution. The family had originated in Poland and had lived in Congress Kingdom (the part of Poland then within the Russian Empire)...
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