Friday, September 6, 2013

Who is Paul Milgrom?


Paul Milgrom was born on April 20, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, and graduated from the university in 1970 with a degree in Mathematics. Milgrom worked as an actuary for several years and then in 1975 began an MBA program at Stanford University. There he earned a M.S. in Statistics as well as a Ph.D. in business. He has taught at Northwestern University, Yale University, and is currently the Shirley and Leonard Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Economics at Stanford University as well as a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Paul Milgrom won the Nemmers Prize in Economics in 2008, and the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge award in 2012. He is affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences, Econometrics Society, AEA, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Western Economics Association. In his 65-and-counting years, Milgrom’s largest contributions to the economic community have been in microeconomic theory, auction theory, and market design, with his best know work being in auction theory. Milgrom’s accomplishments have also ranged in many other areas of economics, including incentive theory, industrial economics, game theory, economic history, and economics of manufacturing and organizations. According to Google Scholar, Milgron’s works have been cited an incredible 56,627 times.

Paul Milgrom’s work is important because of his many innovations in the theory of auctions. The design for the simultaneous descending auction that Milgrom contributed to has been adapted for dozens of auctions involving huge sums of money. He has advised Microsoft Networks, Google, Yahoo!, the Oregon Public Utilities Commission, and Mexico in various auctions. Even more personally relevant to us is Milgrom’s work in economics of organizations. Milgrom coauthored with John Roberts one of the textbooks required for this course, Economics, Organization and Management. Although I had not heard of Paul Milgrom before this course, I’m sure that I will have an understanding of his work with economics of organizations after it. 

1 comment:

  1. While we won't spend a lot of time on auctions in the class - that's more about markets than about organizations - we will talk about procurement. When an organization goes out for bids, there is an auctions aspect to that. Much economic theory of auctions is about the pricing the winning bidder pays (in the case of an auction to sell something, like a work of art). In actual procurement there are many other dimensions to the proposal, and often price isn't one of them. It gets determined via negotiation after the winning bidder has been selected.

    ReplyDelete