Awards & Winners

James Mirrlees

Date of Birth 05-July-1936
Place of Birth Newton Stewart
(Dumfries and Galloway)
Nationality United Kingdom
Profession Economist
Sir James Alexander Mirrlees FRSE FBA is a Scottish economist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was knighted in 1998. Born in Minnigaff, Kirkcudbrightshire, Mirrlees was educated at the University of Edinburgh and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a very active student debater. One contemporary, Quentin Skinner, has suggested that Mirrlees was a member of the Cambridge Apostles along with fellow Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen during this period. Between 1968 and 1976, Mirrlees was a visiting professor at MIT three times. He taught at both Oxford University and University of Cambridge. During his time at Oxford, he published papers on economic models for which he would eventually be awarded his Nobel Prize. They centred on situations in which economic information is asymmetrical or incomplete, determining the extent to which they should affect the optimal rate of saving in an economy. Among other results, they demonstrated the principles of "moral hazard" and "optimal income taxation" discussed in the books of William Vickrey. The methodology has since become the standard in the field.

Awards by James Mirrlees

Check all the awards nominated and won by James Mirrlees.

1996


Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
(for their fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information.)