("The Economic Analysis of Public Policy" is an ideal intr...)
"The Economic Analysis of Public Policy" is an ideal introduction to benefit-cost analysis, the economics of efficiency, risk analysis and present value discounting for those with only a modest background in mathematics and economics.
(This book offers a thoughtful selection from Vickrey's pa...)
This book offers a thoughtful selection from Vickrey's papers, organized to bring out the scope as well as the unity of the work. Vickrey had the unique distinction of having contributed, often seminally and always operationally, to all major branches of public economics. This is a fascinating overview of the field and of his life work.
(Collecting Nobel Laureate William S. Vickrey's articles o...)
Collecting Nobel Laureate William S. Vickrey's articles on macroeconomic theory and policy written towards the end of his career, this volume demonstrates his enduring commitment to full employment and price stability, and his rejection of conventional macroeconomic theorizing.
William Spencer Vickrey was a Canadian-born American economist, author, and educator. He was awarded the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with James Mirrlees for their research into the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information, becoming the only Nobel laureate born in British Columbia.
Background
William Spencer Vickrey was born on June 21, 1914 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He was a son of Charles Vernon Vickrey and Ada Eliza (Spencer) Vickrey.
William Vickrey’s family moved from Canada to New York when he was three months old.
Education
William Spencer Vickrey attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. After obtaining his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics with high honors at Yale University in 1935, he went on to complete his Master of Arts in 1937 and Ph.D. in 1948 at Columbia University.
Vickrey also received his Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Chicago in 1979.
William Spencer Vickrey began his career as a junior economist of the National Resources Committee, Washington in 1937-1938. Later he became a research assistant at the 20th Century Fund in 1939-1940.
Vickrey also worked as a senior economist at the U.S. Treasury's Division of Tax Research from 1941 to 1943. He also was a civilian public service assignee between 1943 and 1946 and a tax consultant to governor of Puerto Rico in 1946.
Besides, William Spencer Vickrey was a professor at Columbia University throughout his career from 1946 until his death. Vickrey had many graduate students and protegés at Columbia University, including the economists Jacques Drèze, Harvey J. Levin, and Lynn Turgeon.
In addition, he was a participant of numerous conferences and seminars and a visiting lecturer at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia in 1971.
Moreover, Vickrey’s work in public economics was generally focused on a few key areas including taxation, pricing in public utilities and urban transportation. He was the first to use the tools of game theory to explain the dynamics of auctions. The Vickrey auction, which is sometimes also called a second bid auction or second price auction, is named after him. In this type of an auction, the winning buyer pays the second-highest bid. According to Vickrey, in this type of an auction, bidders have an incentive to bid truthfully.
Vickrey also worked on congestion pricing, the notion that roads and other services should be priced so that users see the costs that arise from the service being fully used when there is still demand. Vickrey first came up with a model for congestion pricing in the early 1950s, when he did research on transit rates in New York City for the mayor’s office. He proposed zoned and peak fares for New York’s subway system in 1951, but elected officials did not implement his suggestion at the time.
In 1959, he suggested putting transponders in vehicles, monitoring when they entered congested areas and charging people higher fees for driving through congested areas and at rush hour.
Vickrey also proposed similar higher fees based on time of day and congestion for parking meters fares, to reduce congestion on bridges and tunnels and on subways and buses.
In public economics, Vickrey extended the Georgist marginal cost pricing approach of Harold Hotelling and showed how public goods should be provided at marginal cost and capital investment outlays financed with land value tax.
Additionally, Vickrey is known for his work during World War II, when he helped to create a new estate tax for Puerto Rico. Vickrey also worked on a revision of Japan's tax system.
Vickrey became the Nobel laureate for the research into the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information together with James Mirrlees. The announcement of his Nobel prize was made just three days prior to his death. Vickrey died while traveling to a conference of Georgist academics that he had helped found and never missed one during 20 years.
Vickrey was a Quaker and a member of Scarsdale Friends Meeting.
Politics
Vickrey was vocal in opposing the political focus on achieving balanced budgets.
Views
Vickrey's economic philosophy was influenced by John Maynard Keynes and Henry George. He was sharply critical of the Chicago school of economics and was vocal in opposing the fighting inflation, especially in times of high unemployment.
William Vickrey spent his career studying this issue, in areas ranging from income taxation to auction design to subway fares and highway tolls. In the process, he made some striking discoveries.
However, Vickrey, himself a strong believer in using the tax system to take from the rich and give to the poor, saw that such forced transfers would reduce people’s incentive to work.
Quotations:
"People see it as a tax increase, which I think is a gut reaction. When motorists’ time is considered, it’s really a saving."
Membership
Vickrey was a founding member of the National Jobs for All Coalition. In addition, Vickrey was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and president of the American Economic Association in 1992. He was also a member of the Metropolitan Economic Association, American Statistical Association, Royal Economic Society, Eastern Economic Association, and was the president of the Atlantic Economic Society in 1992-1993.
American Economic Association
,
United States
1992
Atlantic Economic Society
1992 - 1993
Personality
Vickrey was not a one-idea man. Throughout his almost 60 years at Columbia, he was admired for finding elegant, intricate ways of solving practical problems.
Quotes from others about the person
Janny Scott, writing in the New York Times, described Vickrey as: "...the ultimate absent-minded professor, a brilliant eccentric using abstract economic theory to find solutions to every day problems."
Winifred Armstrong: "There are many of us who are building on Dr. Vickrey’s work such that it has become also our own. We are grateful for that legacy and will continue it."
Brendan O’Flaherty: "His relationship to these auctions is like Einstein’s to nuclear energy or Faraday’s to electric light bulbs: he had the original ideas that later people put to direct use."
Aaron Warner: "Vickrey’s ideas were always ahead of his time."
C. Lowell Harriss: "I have known almost all of the persons who have gotten the Nobel Prize in Economics, and there’s none who has the range of content or subject matter that my friend had."
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
John Maynard Keynes, Henry George, Harold Hotelling
Connections
Vickrey married Cecile Montez Thompson on July 21, 1951.