return to previous page
return to press release index
return to homepage

中文版

Professor Robert J. Aumann

Professor Robert J. Aumann was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1930. He received his BS from City College, New York in 1950, and PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955, followed by post-doctoral work at Princeton University.

He immigrated to Israel in 1956 and became an instructor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is now a professor emeritus in its Institute of Mathematics and a member of its Center for Rationality and Interactive Decision Theory. He has served as a visiting professor at Princeton University, Yale University and Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, State University of New York, Stony Brook, Catholic University of Louvain and New York University. He is the author of nearly 100 scientific papers and six books.
Professor Aumann is a world renowned game theorist. He was the founding president of the Game Theory Society. He was the first to conduct a full-fledged formal analysis of so-called infinitely repeated games. His research identified exactly what outcomes can be upheld over time in long-run relations. In 2005, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics “for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.”

The theory of repeated games helps explain economic conflicts such as price wars and trade wars, as well as why some communities are more successful than others in managing common-pool resources. It clarifies the raison d’etre of many institutions, ranging from merchant guilds and organized crime to wage negotiations and international trade agreements.

Professor Aumann has also won the Israel Prize in Economics and many other honors. He has received honorary doctorates from University of Bonn, University of Louvain, University of Chicago and City University of New York.