Leonid Hurwicz Quotes
When you talk about the economic process of a society, sometimes we separate it into two stories. One is about monetary variables. But then, we very often assume the underlying arrangement, the other variable, is 'perfect competition,' which means people do whatever they are supposed to do.
Hurwicz, Leonid. "Leonid Hurwicz - Interview." Interview by Adam Smith. NobelPrize.org, Nobel Prize Outreach AB, 15 Oct. 2007.
[Most theoretical conservative economists believe this. When presented with the reality of market systems where great damage was done to people and areas, as in the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession in 2008, they tend to argue that these were not really free markets—–that for various reasons, often they argue that government interference, corrupted the free market. Almost all economists would agree that if there were real highly competitive market his quote would be corrupt, but many have shown that the very greed that is produced by a free market tends to make the major players transform the market to reduce their risk and increase their power, thus producing monopoly, oligarchy, collusion, and anti-competitive practices. Greed is never harmless if it gets enough power.]
Leonid "Leo" Hurwicz was a Polish-American economist and mathematician, known for his work in game theory and mechanism design. He originated the concept of incentive compatibility, and showed how desired outcomes can be achieved by using incentive compatible mechanism design. Hurwicz shared the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (with Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson) for his seminal work on mechanism design. Hurwicz was one of the oldest Nobel Laureates, having received the prize at the age of 90.
