Leonid Hurwicz Quotes

Poland, Economist
August 21, 1917 – June, 24, 2008.

Leonid "Leo" Hurwicz (August 21, 1917 – June 24, 2008) was a Polish-American economist and mathematician of Jewish descent. He originated incentive compatibility and mechanism design, which show how desired outcomes are achieved in economics, social science and political science. Hurwicz shared the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (with Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson) for work on mechanism design. Hurwicz is the oldest Nobel Laureate, having received the prize at the age of 90.

Also known as Mathematician

A game is defined by the players' strategy domains and payoff functions.

Leonid Hurwicz
- Game
- Strategy
- Functions
I had the belief that many troubles you could observe on the European continent were due to politicians not understanding economic phenomena. Even if they had good intentions, they didn't have the skills to solve problems.

Leonid Hurwicz

A need for enforcement implies the possibility of behavior that violates the rules of the game. The point is that if there were no possibility of violation, then you wouldn't need enforcement.

Leonid Hurwicz
- Game
- Behavior
- Violation
Legal behavior is not incompatible with rational, self-interested behavior.

Leonid Hurwicz
When you talk about the economic process of a society, sometimes we separate it into two stories. One is about monetary variables. But then, we very often assume the underlying arrangement, the other variable, is 'perfect competition,' which means people do whatever they are supposed to do.

Leonid Hurwicz
- People
- Society
- Perfect
My father was convinced, I think rightly, that if he stayed in Russia, he would have trouble with Lenin.

Leonid Hurwicz
- Father
- Trouble
- Russia
There were times when other people said I was on the short list, but as time passed and nothing happened, I didn’t expect the recognition would come because people who were familiar with my work were slowly dying off.

Leonid Hurwicz
- People
- Time
- Work
There are two kinds of games in economics. One is the game where people use only legal moves. Then there is the true game, the one like real life, where the strategies and moves people make, some of them contain illegal gains.

Leonid Hurwicz
- People
- Life
- Real

Just because there are people who violate rules, behave illegally and so on, it does not mean that everybody is like that. On the contrary, if you watch certain judges, you observe that they honestly try to implement what they believe the Constitution says and just put it into effect.

Leonid Hurwicz
- People
- Believe
- Rules