Oskar Morgenstern


Oskar Morgenstern was a German-born economist. In collaboration with mathematician John von Neumann, he is credited with founding the field of game theory and its application to social sciences and strategic decision-making. He also made significant contributions to decision theory.
He served as a consultant or co-founder for companies including the Market Research Corporation of America and the original Mathematica Inc.

Biography

Morgenstern was born in Görlitz in the Prussian Province of Silesia. His mother was rumored to be a daughter of Emperor Frederick III.
Morgenstern grew up in Vienna, Austria, where he attended university. In 1925, he graduated from the University of Vienna with a PhD in political science. From 1925 to 1928, he undertook a three-year fellowship financed by the Rockefeller Foundation. After his return in 1928, he became a professor of economics at the University of Vienna, a position he held until he visited Princeton University in 1938. In 1935, Morgenstern published the article Perfect Foresight and Economic Equilibrium, after which his colleague Eduard Čech directed him to an article by John von Neumann, Zur Theorie der Gesellschaftsspiele. He also worked as an outside expert for the Economic and Financial Organization, along with Bertil Ohlin and Jacques Rueff, supporting the EFO's work on economic depressions in the late 1930s.
During Morgenstern's visit to Princeton University, Adolf Hitler took over Vienna during the Anschluss, and Morgenstern chose to remain in the United States. He became a faculty member at Princeton but gravitated toward the Institute for Advanced Study where he met von Neumann. Together, they collaborated on writing Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, published in 1944. The work is recognized as the first book on game theory, a mathematical framework for studying strategic structures governing rational decision-making in economic, political, and military situations. In 2013, the University of Vienna relocated the Faculty of Business, Economics and Statistics and named the square Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz in his honor.
The collaboration between Morgenstern and von Neumann led to new areas of investigation in both mathematics and economics, attracting widespread academic and practical interest. In 1944, Morgenstern became a United States citizen, and four years later he married Dorothy Young, with whom he had two children, Carl and Karin. In 1950, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. Morgenstern remained at Princeton as a professor of economics until his retirement in 1970, after which he joined the faculty of New York University. Morgenstern authored numerous articles and books, including On the Accuracy of Economic Observations and Predictability of Stock Market Prices with subsequent Nobel laureate Clive Granger.
Morgenstern died in Princeton, New Jersey in 1977. The archive of his of published and unpublished works is held at Duke University.
In November 2012, a square in Alsergrund, Vienna, was named "Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz"; it is the location of the Faculties of Economics and Mathematics of the University of Vienna.
In 2013, the University of Vienna awarded the for the first time; the inaugural recipient was Nobel laureate Roger B. Myerson. Subsequent recipients include Robert F. Engle, Ernst Fehr, Christopher Pissarides, Muriel Niederle, Thomas Piketty and Phanish Puranam.

Mathematica

In 1958-59, Morgenstern and several Princeton University colleagues started a "small research organization" that became later known as Mathematica Inc.
He was involved as a founder or co-founder in the following companies: