William Vickrey (1914-1996)

Awarded the Prize “for his fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information.”

American economist. Vickrey was born on June 21, 1914 at Victoria, Canada. He received a B.S. in mathematics from Yale University in 1935, received his M.A. degree at Columbia University. In 1948, he obtained his Ph.D. from Columbia. He became a full professor in 1958 was named McVickar Professor in 1971 at Columbia. He was chairman of the Department of Economics retired as McVickar Professor Emeritus in 1982. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1992 served as president of the American Economic Association. Vickrey died on October 11, 1996 at Harrison, New York.
Major Works:
Agenda for Progressive Taxation (1949); Public Economics (1994)