William Vickrey facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
William Vickrey
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| Born | 21 June 1914 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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| Died | 11 October 1996 (aged 82) |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Institution | Columbia University |
| Field | Public economics |
| School or tradition |
Post-Keynesian economics |
| Alma mater | Columbia University Yale University |
| Doctoral advisor |
Carl Shoup Robert M. Haig |
| Doctoral students |
David Colander Jacques Drèze |
| Influences | Henry George Harold Hotelling John Maynard Keynes |
| Contributions | Vickrey auction Revenue equivalence theorem Congestion pricing |
| Awards |
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| Information at IDEAS / RePEc | |
William Spencer Vickrey (born June 21, 1914 – died October 11, 1996) was a smart professor of economics from Canada and the United States. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1996. He shared the prize with James Mirrlees for their work on how people make choices when they don't have all the information, especially about incentives.
William Vickrey was the only Nobel winner ever born in British Columbia, Canada. He found out he won the Nobel Prize just three days before he passed away. He was on his way to a meeting for a group of academics he helped start and had never missed in 20 years. His friend and colleague, C. Lowell Harriss, accepted the award for him after he died. Only three other people have received a Nobel Prize after they passed away.
Contents
Early Life and Education
William Vickrey was born in Victoria, British Columbia. He went to high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. After that, he studied Mathematics at Yale University and earned his first degree in 1935.
Later, he went to Columbia University for his master's degree in 1937 and his PhD in 1948. He stayed at Columbia University for most of his working life, teaching and doing research there.
What William Vickrey Studied
William Vickrey was a very important economist who helped us understand how things like auctions and traffic work.
Auctions and Game Theory
Vickrey was the first to use game theory to study how auctions really work. Game theory is a way to understand how people make decisions when their choices affect others. In one of his most famous papers, Vickrey explained different ways auctions could end. He also showed that some types of auctions bring in the same amount of money. This idea is now a key part of modern auction theory. An auction type called the Vickrey auction is named after him.
Congestion Pricing
Vickrey also worked on something called congestion pricing. This idea suggests that services like roads should cost more when they are very busy. The goal is to make people think about the true cost of using a service when it's crowded. This helps people decide if they should travel at a different time or use a different route. It also helps planners decide if they need to build more roads or services. Parts of this idea have been used, for example, in London.
Public Goods and Taxes
In the field of public economics, Vickrey looked at how public services should be paid for. He thought that public services should be offered at their actual cost. He also believed that big projects, like new roads or buildings, should be paid for using a land value tax. This is a tax on the value of land itself, not on buildings or improvements on the land.
Vickrey believed that taxing land value would make the economy work much better. He thought it would encourage people to use land wisely and could even make land prices go up instead of down. He also felt it was fair because people who own valuable land benefit from public services, even if they don't use them directly.
Economic Ideas
Vickrey's economic thinking was shaped by famous economists like John Maynard Keynes and Henry George. He didn't agree with some ideas from the Chicago school of economics. He often spoke out against focusing too much on having a balanced budget and fighting inflation (when prices go up), especially when many people were out of work.
He also worked with General MacArthur to help make big changes to how land was owned in Japan. Vickrey taught many students at Columbia University, including other economists like Jacques Drèze and Harvey J. Levin.
Personal Life
William Vickrey married Cecile Thompson in 1951. He was a Quaker, which is a type of Christian group. He was a member of the Scarsdale Friends Meeting. He passed away in Harrison, New York, in 1996 because of heart failure.
See also
- Electricity market
- London congestion charge
- Road pricing
- Vickrey auction
