Sir James Alexander Mirrlees (5 July 1936 – 29 August 2018) was a British economist and winner of the 1996

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...

. He was knighted in the 1997 Birthday Honours.

Early life and education

Born in Minnigaff,

Wigtownshire Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown (, ) is one of the Counties of Scotland, historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Wigtownshire was an counties of Scotland, administrative county used for ...

, Mirrlees was educated at Douglas Ewart High School, then at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

( MA in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in 1957) and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

(

Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a di ...

and PhD in 1963 with thesis title ''Optimum Planning for a Dynamic Economy'', supervised by

Richard Stone Sir John Richard Nicholas Stone (30 August 1913 – 6 December 1991) was an eminent British economist. He was educated at Gonville and Caius College and King's College at the University of Cambridge. In 1984, he was awarded the Nobel Memori ...

). He was a very active student debater. A contemporary,

Quentin Skinner Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner (born 26 November 1940) is a British intellectual historian. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. He has won numerous prizes for his work, including ...

, has suggested that Mirrlees was a member of the Cambridge Apostles along with fellow Nobel Laureate

Amartya Sen Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher. Sen has taught and worked in England and the United States since 1972. In 1998, Sen received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions ...

during the period.

Economics

Between 1968 and 1976, Mirrlees was a visiting professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

three times. He was also a visiting professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

(1986) and

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

(1989). He taught at both

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

(as Edgeworth Professor of Economics 1968–1995) and

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

(1963–1968 and 1995–2018). During his time at Oxford, he published papers on

economic model An economic model is a theoretical construct representing economic processes by a set of variables and a set of logical and/or quantitative relationships between them. The economic model is a simplified, often mathematical, framework designed ...

s for which he would eventually be awarded his Nobel Prize. The papers centred on asymmetric information, which determines the extent to which they should affect the optimal rate of saving in an economy. Among other results, he demonstrated the principles of "

moral hazard In economics, a moral hazard is a situation where an economic actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs associated with that risk, should things go wrong. For example, when a corporation i ...

" and " optimal income taxation" discussed in the books of William Vickrey. The methodology has since become the standard in the field. Mirrlees and Vickrey shared the 1996

"for their fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information". Mirrlees was also co-creator, with MIT Professor Peter A. Diamond, of the Diamond–Mirrlees efficiency theorem, which was developed in 1971. Mirrlees was emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the

and a Fellow of

. He spent several months a year at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. He was the Distinguished Professor-at-Large of the

Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public university, public research university in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong. Established in 1963 as a federation of three university college, collegesChung Chi College, New Asia Coll ...

as well as University of Macau. In 2009, he was appointed Founding Master of the Morningside College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Mirrlees was a member of

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

Council of Economic Advisers The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the president of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical resea ...

. He also led the Mirrlees Review, a review of the UK tax system by the

Institute for Fiscal Studies The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) is an independent economic research institute based in London, United Kingdom, which specialises in UK taxation and public policy. It produces both academic and policy-related findings. The institute's ...

. His PhD students included eminent academics and policymakers like professor Franklin Allen, Sir Partha Dasgupta, professor Huw Dixon, professor Hyun-Song Shin, Lord Nicholas Stern, professor Anthony Venables, Sir John Vickers, and professor Zhang Weiying. He died in Cambridge, England, on 29 August 2018.

Personal life

Mirrlees was an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

Publications

* "A New Model of Economic Growth"(with N. Kaldor), ''RES'', 1962 * "Optimum Growth When Technology is Changing", ''RES'', 1967 * "The Dynamic Nonsubstitution Theorem", ''RES'', 1969 * "The Evaluation of National Income in an Imperfect Economy", ''Pakistan Development Review'', 1969 * ''Manual of Industrial Project Analysis in Developing Countries, Vol II: Social Cost Benefit Analysis'' (with I.M.D. Little), 1969 * "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation", ''RES'', 197

* "Optimal Taxation and Public Production I: Production Efficiency" (with P.A. Diamond), ''AER'', 1971 * "Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules"(with P.A. Diamond),''AER'', 1971 * "The Terms of Trade: Pearson on Trade, Debt, and Liquidity", in ''The Widening Gap'' (ed. Barbara Ward), 1971) * "On Producer Taxation", ''RES'', 1972 * "Further Reflections on Project Analysis" (with I.M.D. Little), ''Development and Planning. Essays for Paul Rosenstein-Rodan'' (eds. Bhagwati and Eckaus, 1972 * "Fairly Good Plans" (with N.H. Stern), ''Journal of Economic Theory'', 1972 * "Aggregate Production with Consumption Externalities" (with P.A. Diamond), ''QJE'', 1973 * "The Optimum Town", ''Swedish Journal of Economics'', 1972 * "Population Policy and the Taxation of Family Size", ''Journal of Public Economics'', 1972 *"Agreeable Plans" (with P.J. Hammond) and "Models of Economic Growth" (introduction), in ''Models of Economic Growth'' (ed. Mirrlees and Stern), 1973 * ''Project Appraisal and Planning for Developing Countries'' (with I.M.D. Little), 1974 * "Optimal Accumulation under Uncertainty: the Case of Stationary Returns to Investment", in ''Allocation under Uncertainty'' (ed. J. Dreze), 1974 * "Notes on Welfare Economics, Information and Uncertainty", in ''Essays in Equilibrium Behavior under Uncertainty'' (eds. M. Balch, D. McFadden, and S. Wu), 1974 * "Optimal Taxation in a Two-Class Economy", ''Journal of Public Economics'', 1975 * "Optimum Saving with Economies of Scale" (with A.K. Dixit and N.H. Stern), ''RES'', 1975 * "A Pure Theory of Underdeveloped Economies, using a Relationship between Consumption and Productivity", in ''Agriculture in Development Theory'' (ed. L. Reynolds), 1975 * "The Desirability of Natural Resource Depletion" (with J.A. Kay), in ''The Economics of Natural Resource Depletion'' (ed. D.W. Pearce), 1975 * "The Optimal Structure of Incentives and Authority within an Organization", ''Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science'', 1976 * "On the Assignment of Liability: the Uniform Case" (with P.A. Diamond), ''Bell Journal of Economics'', 1975 * "Private Constant Returns and Public Shadow Prices"(with P.A. Diamond), ''RES'', 1976 * "Optimal Tax Theory: A Synthesis", ''Journal of Public Economics'', December 1976 * "Implications for Tax Rates", in ''Taxation and Incentives'', 1976 * "Arguments for Public Expenditure" in ''Contemporary Economic Analysis'' (eds. Artis and Nobay), 1979 * "Social Benefit-Cost Analysis and the Distribution of Income", ''World Development'', 1978 * "A Model of Optimal Social Insurance with Variable Retirement" (with P.A. Diamond), ''Journal of Public Economics'', 1978 * "Optimal Taxation in a Stochastic Economy: A Cobb-Douglas Example" (with P.A. Diamond and J. Helms), ''Journal of Public Economics'', 1980 * "Optimal Foreign-income taxation", ''Journal of Public Economics'', 1982 * "The economic uses of utilitarianism", in * "The Theory of Optimum Taxation", ''Handbook of Mathematical Economics'' (eds. Arrow and Intriligator), Vol.III, 1985 * "Insurance Aspects of Pensions" (with P.A. Diamond), in ''Pensions, Labor and Individual Choice'' (ed. David A. Wise), 1985 * "Payroll-tax financed social insurance with variable retirement" (with P. A. Diamond), ''Scandinavian Journal of Economics'', 1986 * "Taxing Uncertain Incomes", ''Oxford Economic Papers'', 1990 * "Project Appraisal and Planning Twenty Years On" (with I.M.D. Little), in ''Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics 1990'' (eds. Stanley Fischer, Dennis de Tray and Shekhar Shah), 1991 * "Optimal Taxation of Identical Consumers when markets are incomplete" (with P.A. Diamond), in ''Economic Analysis of Markets and Games'' (ed. Dasgupta, Gale, Hart and Maskin), 1992 * "Optimal Taxation and Government Finance" in ''Modern Public Finance'' (eds. Quigley and Smolensky), 1994 * "Welfare Economics and Economies of Scale", ''Japanese Economic Review'', 1995 * "Private Risk and Public Action: The Economies of the Welfare State", ''European Economic Review'', 1995
"Tax by Design: the Mirrlees Review"
, J. Mirrlees, S. Adam, T. Besley, R. Blundell, S. Bond, R. Chote, M. Gammie, P. Johnson, G. Myles and J. Poterba, , Oxford University Press: September 2011.

References

External links

*
James Mirrlees website
Pete Tregear and Dan Atherton.

from The Chinese University of Hong Kong
James Mirrlees interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 21 July 2009 (video)
* * * including the Prize Lecture 9 December 1996 ''Information and Incentives: The Economics of Carrots and Sticks'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Mirrlees, James 1936 births 2018 deaths Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Chinese University of Hong Kong Edgeworth Professors of Economics Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of the Econometric Society Presidents of the Econometric Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Information economists Knights Bachelor Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Nobel laureates in Economics Public economists People educated at Douglas Ewart High School People from Dumfries and Galloway Scottish atheists Scottish economists Scottish Nobel laureates British Nobel laureates 20th-century British economists 20th-century Scottish writers 21st-century British economists 21st-century Scottish writers Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Institute for New Economic Thinking Professors of Political Economy (Cambridge, 1863)