Eric S. Maskin
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2007

Born: 12 December 1950, New York, NY, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA

Prize motivation: "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory."

Contribution: Developed implementation theory, a theory for achieving particular social or economic goals. An important problem is that a mechanism typically admits multiple equilibria. Even if the best outcome is possible to achieve other inferior solutions may exist. Maskin was first to develop conditions under which all equilibria are optimal.

Prize share: 1/3