Martin Shubik (1926-2018) was an American mathematical economist who specialized in

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...

, defense analysis, and the theory of money and financial institutions. The latter was his main research interest and he coined the term "mathematical institutional economics" in 1959 to describe it and referred to it as his "white whale" (only considering it caught after publishing his final five books on the topic). He spent the majority of his career at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

, where he was heavily involved with the

Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics The Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics is an economic research institute at Yale University. It was created as the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics at Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs in 1932 by businessman and econ ...

, and launched the virtua
Museum of Money and Financial Institutions
Outside of economics, he began studying inclusion body myositis (IBM) after a 2003 diagnosis. He provided seed money to the Yale School of Public Health for th
IBM Disease Registry
in 2011, a survey was conducted in 2012-2013, and he is a co-author on a 2015 paper about the initial results (along with his son-in-law Seth Richards-Shubik).

Personal life

Martin Shubik was born on 24 March 1926 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, New York to Joseph and Sara Shubik (née Soloveychik) (both of whom were Jewish, but Russian and French, respectively). However, Joseph Shubik worked for a Scottish flax and linen company and the family returned to London when Martin Shubik was just three months old. He remained in England until

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, when he, Sara Shubik, and younger sister

Irene Shubik Irene Shubik (26 December 1929 – 26 September 2019) was a British television producer and story editor, known for her contribution to the development of the single play in British television drama. Beginning her career in television at A ...

(1929-2019) were sent to join relatives in Canada, while Joseph Shubik and older brother Philippe Shubik (1921-2004) stayed behind. To fulfill a condition of enrollment in college in Canada during the War, Martin Shubik enlisted in the

Royal Canadian Navy The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; french: Marine royale canadienne, ''MRC'') is the naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of 2021, the RCN operates 12 frigates, four attack subma ...

and held the rank of Lieutenant before retiring in 1950. Shubik was married to Julie Kahn (d. 2018) and had one child, Claire Louise Shubik (b. 1973). Irene Shubik became a British television producer and Philippe Shubik a cancer researcher.

Education

Shubik earned a BA in Mathematics (1947) and MA in Political Economy (1949) from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

and a AM (1951) and PhD (1953) in Economics from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, where his dissertation was supervised by

Oskar Morgenstern Oskar Morgenstern (January 24, 1902 – July 26, 1977) was an Austrian-American economist. In collaboration with mathematician John von Neumann, he founded the mathematical field of game theory as applied to the social sciences and strategic decis ...

. His other teachers included Albert Tucker,

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest c ...

, and

Jacob Viner Jacob Viner (3 May 1892 – 12 September 1970) was a Canadian economist and is considered with Frank Knight and Henry Simons to be one of the "inspiring" mentors of the early Chicago school of economics in the 1930s: he was one of the leading fig ...

; his roommates were future

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winners

Lloyd Shapley Lloyd Stowell Shapley (; June 2, 1923 – March 12, 2016) was an American mathematician and Nobel Prize-winning economist. He contributed to the fields of mathematical economics and especially game theory. Shapley is generally considered one of ...

and John Nash; and his classmates included Thomas Whitin,

Otto Eckstein Otto Eckstein (August 1, 1927 – March 22, 1984) was a German-American economist. He was a key developer and proponent of the theory of core inflation , which proposed that in determining accurate metrics of long run inflation, the transitory pri ...

Gary Becker Gary Stanley Becker (; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of ...

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory ...

, John McCarthy,

Herbert Scarf Herbert Eli "Herb" Scarf (July 25, 1930 – November 15, 2015) was an American mathematical economist and Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University. Education and career Scarf was born in Philadelphia, the son of Jewish emigrants from ...

, Ralph Gomory, Richard Karlin, Alan Hoffman, and

Harlan Mills Harlan D. Mills (May 14, 1919 – January 8, 1996) was Professor of Computer Science at the Florida Institute of Technology and founder of Software Engineering Technology, Inc. of Vero Beach, Florida (since acquired by Q-Labs). Mills' contr ...

. Shubik and Shapley used the

Shapley value The Shapley value is a solution concept in cooperative game theory. It was named in honor of Lloyd Shapley, who introduced it in 1951 and won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for it in 2012. To each cooperative game it assigns a uni ...

to formulate the Shapley-Shubik power index in 1954 to measure the power of players in a voting game. Shubik's curriculum vitae lists over 20 books and 300 articles, with Shapley being his most frequent collaborator (14 articles). Nash also appears twice, including with Shapley and Mel Hausner on "So Long Sucker - A Four Person Game" about a

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a co ...

that they invented.

Teaching and other employment

Before fully committing to academia, Shubik spent time at

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250 ...

(GE) as a Consultant in Management Consultation Services from 1956-1960 and International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) as a Staff Member in the T. J. Watson Research Laboratories from 1961 to 1963. During his life, he served as a consultant and expert witness for many other companies, organizations, and government agencies (including the

RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is finance ...

). Later in life, he was an External Professor at the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inclu ...

from 1995-2018. Shubik spent the majority of his career at Yale University, where he was Professor of the Economics of Organization from 1963-1975, then the Seymour H. Knox Professor of Mathematical Institutional Economics from 1975 until his retirement in 2007 (after which he became emeritus). He was also Director of the

from 1973-1976 and a founding faculty member of the

Yale School of Management The Yale School of Management (also known as Yale SOM) is the graduate business school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. The school awards the Master of Business Administration (MBA), MBA for Executive ...

(originally the School of Organization and Management). He taught courses in economics, game theory, and investment theory and practice.

Awards and honors

Shubik's awards included the Frederick W. Lanchester Prize (1984) fo
''Game Theory in the Social Sciences'', volume 1
and the Koopman Prize (1995) with Jerome Bracken from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and he was a Distinguished Fellow of the

American Economic Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals acknowledged in business and academia. There are some 23,000 members. History and Constitution The AEA was esta ...

(AEA; 2010).

Other selected publications

Articles

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Books

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External links

Remembering Martin Shubik
on Padlet

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shubik, Martin 1926 births 2018 deaths Princeton University alumni University of Toronto alumni People from New York City Game theorists Yale University faculty 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American economists 21st-century American economists Fellows of the Econometric Society Santa Fe Institute people Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association