Eric
Stark Maskin (born December 12,
1950) is an American economist and 2007 Nobel laureate recognized with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson "for having laid the foundations
of mechanism design theory". He
is the Adams University Professor and
Professor of Economics and Mathematics at Harvard
University. Until 2011, he was the Albert O. Hirschman Professor
of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study,
and a visiting lecturer with the rank of professor at Princeton University. Maskin
was born in New York City on December 12, 1950,
into a Jewish family, and spent his youth in Alpine, New Jersey. He
graduated from Tenafly High School in Tenafly, New Jersey, in
1968. In 1972, he graduated with A.B. in mathematics from Harvard College, the undergraduate liberal arts college of Harvard University. In
1974, he earned A.M. in applied
mathematics and in 1976 earned a Ph.D. in applied
mathematics, both at Harvard University. In
1975-76, he was a visiting student at Darwin College, Cambridge
University. In 1976, after earning his doctorate, Maskin became a research
fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge
University. In the following year, he joined the faculty at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. In 1985 he returned to Harvard as the Louis
Berkman Professor of Economics, where he remained until 2000. That year, he
moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In
addition to his position at the Princeton Institute, Maskin is the director of
the Jerusalem Summer School in Economic Theory at The Institute for Advanced Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[6] In 2010, he was conferred an honorary doctoral
degree in economics from The University of Cambodia. In
2011, Maskin returned to Harvard as the Adams
University Professor and professor of economics and mathematics. Maskin has
worked in diverse areas of economic theory, such as game theory, the economics of incentives, and contract theory.
He is particularly known for his papers on mechanism design/implementation theory and dynamic games. With Jean Tirole, he advanced the concept
of Markov perfect equilibrium.
His research projects include comparing different electoral rules, examining
the causes of inequality, and studying coalition formation. Maskin is a Fellow
of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, Econometric Society, and
the European Economic Association,
and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He was president of the Econometric
Society in 2003. In 2014,
Maskin was appointed as a visiting professor at Covenant University,
Nigeria. In September 2017, Maskin
received the title of HEC Paris Honoris Causa Professor. He also served on the Social Sciences
jury for the Infosys Prize in 2018. Maskin
suggested that software patents inhibit innovation rather than stimulate progress. Software,
semiconductor, and computer industries have been innovative despite
historically weak patent protection, he argued. Innovation in those industries
has been sequential and complementary, so competition can increase firms'
future profits. In such a dynamic industry, "patent protection may reduce
overall innovation and social welfare". A natural experiment occurred in
the 1980s when patent protection was extended to software", wrote Maskin
with co-author James Bessen. "Standard arguments
would predict that R&D intensity and productivity should have increased
among patenting firms. Consistent with our model, however, these increases did
not occur". Other evidence supporting this model includes a distinctive
pattern of cross-licensing and a positive
relationship between rates of innovation and firm entry.