Leonid Hurwicz

Leonid Hurwicz (August 21, 1917 in Moscow, † June 24, 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) was an American economist and Nobel laureate. He was Professor Emeritus of the University of Minnesota and was a founder of the " Mechanism Design" theory, which was much later developed by Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson.

Life

Hurwicz was born as the son of Polish- Jewish parents in 1917 in Moscow. His family returned to the end of the war in early 1919 returned to Warsaw, where he went to school and later attended the University. In 1938 he finished his studies at the Warsaw University as Master of Laws. From 1935 to 1938, he completed both a study of Experimental Physics and at the Conservatory of Music to study for piano. After attending the London School of Economics from 1938 to 1939 Hurwicz was at the outbreak of World War II in Switzerland and emigrated to the U.S. in 1940. Here he worked with, among others, the Nobel laureate Paul A. Samuelson. As a visiting professor he worked among others at Harvard University and Stanford University.

In the economic literature broadly enforced has been named after him Hurwicz rule that can be applied to the choice between alternatives under uncertainty.

Awards

Hurwicz was awarded in 2007, together with Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson for work in the design of economic mechanisms of the Nobel Prize in Economics. He was at the time of the award with 90 years of hitherto oldest winners.