Maskin, Eric Stark
Eric Stark Maskin, 1950–, American economist, b. New York, N.Y., Ph.D. Harvard, 1976. He was on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1977–84) and Harvard (1985–2000) before joining (2000) the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. With Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson, Maskin was awarded the 2006 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. Maskin and Myerson extended Hurwicz's work on mechanism design theory, a branch of game theory (see games, theory of) that examines what rules provide the incentives that produce the most desirable result; they provided tools for social scientists to explain how individuals, institutions, and markets interact. Maskin also has worked on the theory of income inequality, the study of intellectual property rights, political economy, and other aspects of economics.