"We forget that ageing is a really good thing and a great achievement. Ageing is a great mark of success!" Happy 75th birthday to economist Angus Deaton, who was awarded the 2015 Prize in Economic Sciences "for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare."
Deaton, Angus (2013). The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN9780691153544.
Expansion of the court rests in the hands of Congress, a right it has exercised several times in the nation's history, writes historian Nicole Hemmer. Rather than being "illicit" or "tyranny," as conservative critics have charged, it is an ordinary power of Congress granted by the Constitution. (via
CNN Opinion
)
CNN.COM Opinion: Why history shows 'court packing' isn't extreme via CNN Opinion
Paul Robert Milgrom (born April 20, 1948) is an American economist. He is the Shirley and Leonard Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences ... Milgrom and his thesis advisor Robert B. Wilson designed the auction protocol the FCC uses to determine which phone company gets what cellular frequencies. Milgrom also led ... Doctoral advisor： Robert B. Wilson Fields： Economist Doctoral students： Susan Athey; Joshua Gans; ... Nationality： American
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2020 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson “for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats.” This year’s Laureates, Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, have studied how auctions work. They have also used their insights to design new auction formats for goods and services that are difficult to sell in a traditional way, such as radio frequencies. Their discoveries have benefitted sellers, buyers and taxpayers around the world. People have always sold things to the highest bidder, or bought them from whoever makes the cheapest offer. Nowadays, objects worth astronomical sums of money change hands every day in auctions, not only household objects, art and antiquities, but also securities, minerals and energy. Public procurements can also be conducted as auctions. Using auction theory, researchers try to understand the outcomes of different rules for bidding and final prices, the auction format. The analysis is difficult, because bidders behave strategically, based on the available information. They take into consideration both what they know themselves and what they believe other bidders to know. Robert Wilson developed the theory for auctions of objects with a common value – a value which is uncertain beforehand but, in the end, is the same for everyone. Examples include the future value of radio frequencies or the volume of minerals in a particular area. Wilson showed why rational bidders tend to place bids below their own best estimate of the common value: they are worried about the winner’s curse – that is, about paying too much and losing out. Paul Milgrom formulated a more general theory of auctions that not only allows common values, but also private values that vary from bidder to bidder. He analysed the bidding strategies in a number of well-known auction formats, demonstrating that a format will give the seller higher expected revenue when bidders learn more about each other’s estimated values during bidding. Over time, societies have allocated ever more complex objects among users, such as landing slots and radio frequencies. In response, Milgrom and Wilson invented new formats for auctioning off many interrelated objects simultaneously, on behalf of a seller motivated by broad societal benefit rather than maximal revenue. In 1994, the US authorities first used one of their auction formats to sell radio frequencies to telecom operators. Since then, many other countries have followed suit. “This year’s Laureates in Economic Sciences started out with fundamental theory and later used their results in practical applications, which have spread globally. Their discoveries are of great benefit to society,” says Peter Fredriksson, chair of the Prize Committee.
Op-Ed: Democrats have a secret weapon to thwart a rapid Ginsburg replacement. They should use it
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to rapidly move on any Trump nomination to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)
By ERWIN CHEMERINSKY
SEP. 18, 2020
10:19 PM
Wouldn’t it be nice if Democrats and Republicans could just agree that the fair and right course would be to not replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg until after the presidential inauguration in January? We could simply stick, for now, with the precedent established by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell when he refused to hold a vote on the nomination of Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
At the time, nearly nine months before the 2016 presidential election, he declared, “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
But just hours after the announcement of Ginsburg’s death on Friday, McConnell declared, “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
There is little Democrats can do to stop Trump from nominating someone and the Republicans from confirming that person quickly, if that’s what they choose to do. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and they have eliminated the use of the filibuster in Supreme Court nominations. So the hope must be that four Republican senators — perhaps those facing tight reelection races — will have the courage to stand up to their party and refuse to allow a confirmation to be rushed through.
That is probably a distant hope. So far, Senate Republicans have shown little inclination to stand up to Trump and McConnell, as was evident in their confirming Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, despite compelling testimony about an alleged sexual assault and perjury — and despite clear evidence that he lacked judicial temperament. Nor did Republicans demonstrate any independence or courage during the impeachment of Trump.
That leaves Democrats with few cards to play at a crucial moment for our democracy. The stakes are enormous. Last term, with Ginsburg on the bench, the court handed down surprising 5-4 decisions to protect individual rights, including a decision to strike down Louisiana’s restrictive abortion law and to invalidate Trump’s rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. If Ginsburg is replaced by a hard-line conservative who puts politics and feelings ahead of the law, the chance of such rulings will evaporate.
On the current court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is ideologically in the middle. To be sure, he is to the right of America’s current political center, but at times he joins with the liberals, including in a vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act. If Ginsburg is replaced with someone from the far right, like Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is frequently mentioned as a likely nominee, there will be five justices substantially more conservative than Roberts. There would be virtually no hope that abortion rights could survive such a court, and little chance of checking Trump.
One way for Democrats to make clear they will not tolerate Republicans trying to fill this seat in advance of the election would be for them to pledge that, if they take the White House and Senate in November, they will increase the size of the Supreme Court to 13 justices.
The number of justices on the court is set by federal law, not the Constitution. Since its beginnings, it has ranged from having between five and 10 members. Since the 1860s, it has remained at nine.
When President Franklin Roosevelt suggested expanding the Supreme Court in the 1930s to overcome court hostility to the New Deal, he was repudiated for trying to pack the court. But the current situation is different. This would be a response to chicanery by Republicans.
What happened with Garland’s nomination was unprecedented, and Democrats rightly believe it was a stolen seat. After Scalia’s death in February 2016, President Obama moved quickly, nominating Garland the next month.
Prior to that time, there had been 24 Supreme Court vacancies in presidential election years. In 21 instances, the Senate confirmed the nominee and in three instances it did not. But never before had the Senate refused to hold hearings and vote. If Republicans now rapidly confirm a replacement for Ginsburg, an antidote from the Democrats will be necessary.
The threat of increasing the size of the court to 13 might be enough to discourage Republicans from their dirty tricks. But if they do it anyway, and the November election produces a Democratic win in the White House and a Democratic majority in the Senate, Congress would be totally justified in increasing the size of the court.
It shouldn’t have to come to this. Republicans should be trying to bridge differences rather than inflaming the situation. It is sad that just hours after Ginsburg’s death the focus is on the political machinations rather than her legacy.
No other justice in history has become a popular icon in the way she did. She modeled for all of us in how to spend a life working to make society and individual lives better. We only can hope for a new justice in her mold.
Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and a contributing writer to Opinion.
1969年上半年，CMU 與瑞典的 Gothenburg 大學在瑞典的Aspenäs 合開類似"電腦競賽與企業管理"會議*。 聊天時，談到剛創始的諾貝爾經濟學獎 (許多人認為，經濟學家與物理學等科學獎德主同台受獎，褻瀆諾貝爾獎......)。 瑞典的主要與會者，商業經濟學家 (business economist) Walter Goldberg** 轉向H. A. Simon 說，"You will receive the prize within ten years." Simon 自認為機會小，因為他50年代的主要學說有限理性 (Bounded Rationality) ，在美國似乎沒人提了..... (參考 Models of My Life By Herbert Simon, Basic Books, 1991, 頁320 (該章標題：From Nobel to Now . 我2020年8月31日才發現該頁錯把Gothenburg寫成Gothenberg。) *這次2周的會議，CMU 的幾位名師都參加，參考Organizing Industrial Development Rolf H. Wolff 編集Organizing Industrial Development - 378 ページ - Google ブック検索結果 **主要著作 Efficiency of Organizations
Herbert A. Simon The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1978
Born: 15 June 1916, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Died: 9 February 2001, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Prize motivation: "for his pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations."
Contribution: Work in a number of fields, including the methodology of science, applied mathematical statistics, operations analysis, economics, and business administration His work is synthesized in a new theory of organizational decision-making.
Prize share: 1/1
Life
Herbert Simon was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States. His mother was a pianist and his father an electrical engineer who had migrated from Germany. His maternal uncle, an economist, sparked his interest in the social sciences. He first studied at the University of Chicago and was awarded a PhD in political science in 1943. After working at the University of California, Berkeley, and then at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, he moved to Carnegie Mellon University in 1949. Herbert Simon was married with three children.
Work
Herbert Simon combined different scientific disciplines and considered new factors in economic theories. Established economic theories held that enterprises and entrepreneurs all acted in completely rational ways, with the maximization of their own profit as their only goal. In contrast, Simon held that when making choices all people deviate from the strictly rational, and described companies as adaptable systems, with physical, personal, and social components. Through these perspectives, he was able to write about decision-making processes in modern society in an entirely new way.
Iwas born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on June 15, 1916. My father, an electrical engineer, had come to the United States in 1903 after earning his engineering diploma at the Technische Hochschule of Darmstadt, Germany. He was an inventor and designer of electrical control gear, later also a patent attorney. An active leader in professional and civic affairs, he received an honorary doctorate from Marquette University for his many activities in the community. My mother, an accomplished pianist, was a third generation American, her forebears having been ’48ers who immigrated from Prague and Köln. Among my European ancestors were piano builders, goldsmiths, and vintners but to the best of my knowledge, no professionals of any kind. The Merkels in Köln were Lutherans, the Goldschmidts in Prague and the Simons in Ebersheim, Jews.
My home nurtured in me an early attachment to books and other things of the intellect, to music, and to the out of doors. I received an excellent general education from the public elementary and high schools in Milwaukee, supplemented by the fine science department of the public library and the many books I found at home. School work was interesting but not difficult, leaving me plenty of time for sandlot baseball and football, for hiking and camping, for reading and for many extracurricular activities during my high school years. A brother, five years my senior, while not a close companion, gave me some anticipatory glimpses of each stage of growing up. Our dinner table at home was a place for discussion and debate – often political, sometimes scientific.
Until well along in my high school years, my interests were quite dispersed, although they were increasingly directed toward science – of what sort I wasn’t sure. For most adolescents, science means physics, mathematics, chemistry, or biology – those are the subjects to which they are exposed in school. The idea that human behavior may be studied scientifically is never hinted until much later in the educational process – it was certainly not conveyed by history or “civics” courses as they were then taught.
My case was different. My mother’s younger brother, Harold Merkel, had studied economics at the University of Wisconsin under John R. Commons. Uncle Harold had died after a brief career with the National Industrial Conference Board, but his memory was always present in our household as an admired model, as were some of his books on economics and psychology. In that way I discovered the social sciences. Uncle Harold having been an ardent formal debater, I followed him in that activity too.
In order to defend free trade, disarmament, the single tax and other unpopular causes in high school debates, I was led to a serious study of Ely’s economics textbook, Norman Angell’s The Great Illusion, Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, and much else of the same sort.
By the time I was ready to enter the University of Chicago, in 1933, I had a general sense of direction. The social sciences, I thought, needed the same kind of rigor and the same mathematical underpinnings that had made the “hard” sciences so brilliantly successful. I would prepare myself to become a mathematical social scientist. By a combination of formal training and self study, the latter continuing systematically well into the 1940s, I was able to gain a broad base of knowledge in economics and political science, together with reasonable skills in advanced mathematics, symbolic logic, and mathematical statistics. My most important mentor at Chicago was the econometrician and mathematical economist, Henry Schultz, but I studied too with Rudolf Carnap in logic, Nicholas Rashevsky in mathematical biophysics, and Harold Lasswell and Charles Merriam in political science. I also made a serious study of graduate-level physics in order to strengthen and practice my mathematical skills and to gain an intimate knowledge of what a “hard” science was like, particularly on the theoretical side. An unexpected by-product of the latter study has been a lifelong interest in the philosophy of physics and several publications on the axiomatization of classical mechanics.
My career was settled at least as much by drift as by choice. An undergraduate field study for a term paper developed an interest in decision-making in organizations. On graduation in 1936, the term paper led to a research assistantship with Clarence E. Ridley in the field of municipal administration, carrying out investigations that would now be classified as operations research. The research assistantship led to the directorship, from 1939 to 1942, of a research group at the University of California, Berkeley, engaged in the same kinds of studies. By arrangement with the University of Chicago, I took my doctoral exams by mail and moonlighted a dissertation on administrative decision-making during my three years at Berkeley.
When our research grant was exhausted, in 1942, jobs were not plentiful and my military obligations were uncertain. I secured a position in political science at Illinois Institute of Technology by the intercession of a friend who was leaving. The return to Chicago had important, but again largely unanticipated, consequences for me. At that time, the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics was located at the University of Chicago. Its staff included Jacob Marschak and Tjalling Koopmans who were then directing the graduate work of such students as Kenneth Arrow, Leo Hurwicz, Lawrence Klein, and Don Patinkin. Oscar Lange, not yet returned to Poland, Milton Friedman, and Franco Modigliani frequently participated in the Cowles staff seminars, and I also became a regular participant.
That started me on a second education in economics, supplementing the Walrasian theory and Neyman-Pearson statistics I had learned earlier from Henry Schultz (and from Jerzy Neyman in Berkeley) with a careful study of Keyne’s General Theory (made comprehensible by the mathematical models proposed by Meade, Hicks, and Modigliani), and the novel econometric techniques being introduced by Frisch and investigated by the Cowles staff. With considerable excitement, too, we examined Samuelson‘s new papers on comparative statics and dynamics.
I was soon co-opted by Marschak into participating in the study he and Sam Schurr were directing of the prospective economic effects of atomic energy. Taking responsibility for the macroeconomic parts of that study, I used as my analytic tools both classical Cobb-Douglas functions, and the new activity analysis being developed by Koopmans. Although I had earlier published papers on tax incidence (1943) and technological development (1947), the atomic energy project was my real baptism in economic analysis. My interest in mathematical economics having been aroused, I continued active work on problems in that domain, mainly in the period from 1950 to 1955. It was during this time that I worked out the relations between causal ordering and identifiability – coming for the first time in contact with the related work of Herman Wold – discovered and proved (with David Hawkins) the Hawkins-Simon theorem on the conditions for the existence of positive solution vectors for input-output matrices, and developed (with Albert Ando) theorems on near-decomposability and aggregation.
In 1949, Carnegie Institute of Technology received an endowment to establish a Graduate School of Industrial Administration. I left Chicago for Pittsburgh to participate with G.L. Bach, William W. Cooper, and others in developing the new school. Our goal was to place business education on a foundation of fundamental studies in economics and behavioral science. We were fortunate to pick a time for launching this venture when the new management science techniques were just appearing on the horizon, together with the electronic computer. As one part of the effort, I engaged with Charles Holt, and later with Franco Modigliani and John Muth, in developing dynamic programming techniques – the so-called “linear decision rules” – for aggregate inventory control and production smoothing. Holt and I derived the rules for optimal decision under certainty, then proved a certainty-equivalence theorem that permitted our technique to be applied under conditions of uncertainty. Modigliani and Muth went on to construct efficient computational algorithms. At this same time, Tinbergen and Theil were independently developing very similar techniques for national planning in the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, however, the descriptive study of organizational decision-making continued as my main occupation, in this case in collaboration with Harold Guetzkow, James March, Richard Cyert and others. Our work led us to feel increasingly the need for a more adequate theory of human problem-solving if we were to understand decisions. Allen Newell, whom I had met at the Rand Corporation in 1952, held similar views. About 1954, he and I conceived the idea that the right way to study problem-solving was to simulate it with computer programs. Gradually, computer simulation of human cognition became my central research interest, an interest that has continued to be absorbing up to the present time.
My research on problem-solving left me relatively little opportunity to do work of a more classical sort in economics. I did, however, continue to develop stochastic models to explain the observed highly-skewed distributions of sizes of business firms. That work, in collaboration with Yuji Ijiri and others, was summarized in a book published just two years ago.
In this sketch, I have said less about my work on decision-making than about my other research in economics because the former is discussed at greater length in my Nobel lecture. I have also left out of this account those very important parts of my life that have been occupied with my family and with non-scientific pursuits. One of my few important decisions, and the best, was to persuade Dorothea Pye to marry me on Christmas Day, 1937. We have been blessed in being able to share a wide range of our experiences, even to publishing together in two widely separate fields: public administration and cognitive psychology. We have shared also the pleasures and responsibilities of raising three children, none of whom seem imitative of their parents’ professional directions, but all of whom have shaped for themselves interesting and challenging lives.
My interests in organizations and administration have extended to participation as well as observation. In addition to three stints as a university department chairman, I have had several modest public assignments. One involved playing a role, in 1948, in the creation of the Economic Cooperation Administration, the agency that administered Marshall Plan aid for the U.S. Government. Another, more frustrating, was service on the President’s Science Advisory Committee during the last year of the Johnson administration and the first three years of the Nixon administration. While serving on PSAC, and during another committee assignment with the National Academy of Sciences, I have had opportunities to take part in studies of environmental protection policies. In all of this work, I have tried – I know not with what success – to apply my scientific knowledge of organizations and decision-making, and, conversely, to use these practical experiences to gain new research ideas and insights.
In the “politics” of science, which these and other activities have entailed, I have had two guiding principles – to work for the “hardening” of the social sciences so that they will be better equipped with the tools they need for their difficult research tasks; and to work for close relations between natural scientists and social scientists so that they can jointly contribute their special knowledge and skills to those many complex questions of public policy that call for both kinds of wisdom.
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Herbert A. Simon died on February 9, 2001.
Herbert Simon
Prize Lecture
Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 8, 1978
Rational Decision-Making in Business Organizations
