Thomas C. Schelling, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2005

Short biography:

Thomas C. Schelling, PhD Harvard economics, 1951, was on the Faculty of Yale University 1953-57, spent 1958-59 at the RAND Corporation, 1959-90 at Harvard—Department of Economics, Center for International Affairs, and John F. Kennedy School of Government—and 1990-2005 at the University of Maryland’s Department of Economics and School of Public Policy.

He was a fiscal analyst at the US Bureau of the Budget, 1945-46, did graduate work at Harvard, 1946-48, was in the Marshall Plan Mission to Denmark 1948-49, the European Office of the Marshall Plan, Paris, 1949-50, the White House Foreign Policy Staff, 1950-51, and the Executive Office of the President (foreign aid programs), 1951-53.

His main theoretical interests have been bargaining, conflict and cooperation, racial segregation, and techniques of self-management. His main policy interests have been nuclear weapons, the limitation of war, climate change, foreign aid, and nicotine.

His major books are The Strategy of Conflict 1960, Strategy and Arms Control (with Morton H. Halperin) 1961, Arms and Influence 1966, and Micromotives and Macrobehavior 1978. His latest book is Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays 2006.

He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy and the National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. In 2005 he received, jointly with Robert Aumann, the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

He spent seven summers as scholar in residence at IIASA, 1993-99.

Thomas Schelling lives with his wife, Alice Coleman Schelling, in Bethesda Maryland. Together they have they have six sons and daughters-in-law and eleven grandchildren.

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Last updated: 18 Dec 2007 http://www.iiasa.ac.at/iiasa35/docs/speakers/schelling.html