✎ About William Vickrey

William Vickrey was born on June 21, 1914 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, United States, is Nobel Prize Winner in Economics. William Vickrey was a Canadian born American economist, known for propagating unusual solutions to everyday problems. Born in early twentieth century, he came into close contact with orphans from the Armenian holocaust early in his life. The experience had a profound effect on his young mind and he felt that every dollar he otherwise spent was a dollar he did not spend in helping the orphans. A well-known post-Keynesian economist, educated first at Yale and then at Columbia University, he spent all his life teaching at Columbia. He cared little for money matters or materialistic comfort or even getting credit for himself; he was more interested in propagating ideas and solving problems. When he received the Noble Prize, he was happy that government authorities would now find it harder to reject his proposals, caring very little for the prize money that accompanied it. Indeed, many of his suggestions like ‘congestion pricing’ were not accepted because of political considerations. However, his works had profound influence on other economists. For example, the modern theory of auction is based on his 1961 seminal work. A prolific writer, he had left behind 8 books, 140 published articles, 27 reviews and 61 unpublished articles and notes.
William Vickrey is a member of Intellectuals & Academics

💰 Net worth: Under Review

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Biography/Timeline

1935

Vickrey was born in Victoria, British Columbia and attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. After obtaining his B.S. in Mathematics at Yale University in 1935, he went on to complete his M.A. in 1937 and Ph.D. in 1948 at Columbia University, where he remained for most of his career.

1951

Vickrey married to Cecile Thompson in 1951. He was a Quaker and a member of Scarsdale Friends Meeting. He died in Harrison, New York in 1996 from heart failure.

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1914 births 1996 deaths American economists Georgist economists American Quakers American Protestants Canadian economists Canadian emigrants to the United States Nobel laureates in Economics Columbia University faculty Columbia University alumni Yale University alumni People from Victoria, British Columbia Canadian Nobel laureates People from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York Guggenheim Fellows 20th-century economists Fellows of the Econometric Society Presidents of the American Economic Association Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association