Robert Wilson

Biography

Robert Wilson is the Winner of the 2020 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

He is the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management Emeritus at Stanford University School of Business.

Three of Professor Wilson’s former students - Paul Milgrom, Alvin Roth, & Bengt Holmstrom - have also won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

When the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was looking to auction off the broadcast spectrum used for wireless communications in 1993, it adopted an auction format called simultaneous multiple round auctions (SMRA) co-invented by Professor Wilson & Professor Paul Milgrom.

Professors Wilson and Milgrom thereby played a key role in shaping the entire U.S. telecommunications industry.

Professor Wilson is Known As ‘The Dean Of Market Design’.

Publications (Selected)

Strategic Foundations of Efficient Rational Expectations. (w/ Paulo Barelli & Srihari Govindan). The Review of Economic Studies. December 2023.

Strategic Analysis of Auctions. Econometrica. March 2021 Vol. 89 Issue 2 Pages 555–561.

Coordination of Electricity Transmission and Generation Investments. (w/ Hung-po Chao). Energy Economics. February 2020Vol. 86

How Market Design Emerged from Game Theory: A Mutual Interview. (w/ Alvin E. Roth). Journal of Economic Perspectives. August 2019 Vol. 33 Issue 3 Pages 118-143.

Global Newton Method for Stochastic Games (w/ Srihari Govindan). Journal of Economic Theory. January 2009 Vol. 144 Issue 1 Pages 414-421.

Sufficient Conditions for Stable Equilibria (w/ Srihari Govindan). Theoretical Economics 2006 Vol. 1 Issue 2 Pages 167-206.

Essential Equilibria (w/ Srihari Govindan). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2005 Vol. 102 Issue 43 Pages 15706–15711.

Bargaining with Private Information (w/ John Kennan). Journal of Economic Literature 1993 Vol. 31 Issue 1 Pages 45-104.

Foundations of Dynamic Monopoly and the Coase Conjecture. (w/ Faruk Gul, Hugo Sonnenschein). Journal of Economic Theory. 1986 Vol. 39 Issue 1 Pages 155-190.

Sequential Equilibria. (w/ David M. Kreps). Econometrica. July 1982 Vol. 50 Issue 4 Pages 863-894.

Rational Cooperation in the Finitely Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma. (w/ David M. Kreps, Paul R. Milgrom, John Roberts). Journal of Economic Theory. 1982 Vol. 27 Pages 245-252.

Known As

The Dean of Market Design

Education

DBA, Harvard University

MBA, Harvard University

AB, Harvard University

Doctoral Dissertation

A Simplicial Algorithm for Concave Programming

Institutions

Stanford University

Topics

Game Theory

Market Design

Social Choice Theory

Information Economics

Industrial Organization

Awards

2020 Nobel Memorial Prize In Economics

2018 John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science, National Academy of Sciences

2006 Designated Distinguished Fellow, The American Economic Association

2001 PhD Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award, Stanford University

1995 Leo Melamed Prize

1994 Elected Member, National Academy of Sciences