Faculty Profile: Larry Samuelson
A. Douglas Melamed Professor of Economics
Professor Larry Samuelson
Professor Larry Samuelson is an expert in microeconomic theory, game theory, repeated games, and the evolutionary foundations of economic behavior. A member of the faculty since 2007, he came to Yale following a seventeen-year tenure at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. This past June he was named the inaugural holder of the A. Douglas Melamed Professorship of Economics, which was established as a part of the Yale Tomorrow campaign by A. Douglas Melamed ’67.
Below he shares his experiences as a member of the Yale faculty and his thoughts on Yale today and Yale tomorrow:
Q: Your recent work has focused on game theory and repeated games, but you are also a scholar in microeconomic theory and the evolutionary foundations of economic behavior. What overarching questions have guided your research in these areas, and are there any new topics you are pursuing?
A: Economic theory has long emphasized impersonal market forces. In its starkest form, economics views resources as being allocated by prices that emerge from the actions of countless, individually insignificant people. Theories of imperfectly competitive markets, such as monopoly, move somewhat beyond this view of the world, but still rely on relatively rigid models of individual behavior. My work seeks to inject a more personal element into economic theory, and to use this theory to examine economic behavior that is not well accommodated by market models. I am interested in strategic interactions in which many individuals may have a significant impact on the outcome, in which people recognize and take into account how their actions affect others and how their fate depends on the particular decisions of others, whether for good or ill. I am interested in how people use continuing, personalized relationships as an alternative to anonymous markets as a vehicle for allocating resources. Game theory in general and the theory of repeated games in particular is the relevant technical tool for pursuing these questions, but the applications are limitless.
Q: You are a well published scholar with many articles and several books to your credit. How do you balance an accomplished research career with your work in the classroom?
A: I have never felt any tension between research and teaching, nor have I felt the need to trade off one activity against the other. One of the most exciting parts of teaching is to bring new developments in the field to the students. Opportunities to do so are obviously plentiful in graduate classes, where one seeks to bring students up to the frontier of current research, but are no less prevalent in undergraduate courses. Each year allows me to bring new topics and new economic concerns into the classroom, new ways of looking at familiar foundations, and new evidence on long-standing puzzles. An active research program is essential to keeping classes fresh, stimulating, and effective. Conversely, the process of explaining things to students and responding to their questions is a constant source of research ideas. One doesn’t really know whether one’s research has produced a complete understanding of a problem until presenting it to an audience of interested non-specialists.
Q: You teach a variety of classes, working with both undergraduates and graduate students. What do you enjoy most about teaching?
A: The high point in teaching is the chance to present new ideas to students and to affect the way they think about the world around them. I enjoy getting students to think and talk critically about ideas that may have long been familiar, but that may appear in a new light once examined carefully. We can do much of this in class, but much of the reward arises out of having a student approach, perhaps after class or perhaps years later, to say “You know, I never thought about it that way before.”
Q: Being named as the first holder of the Melamed chair is an extraordinary honor. What does this new position mean to you and your department?
A: I am honored not only to be the first holder of the Melamed chair, but to be part of a University that attracts such selfless support from its alumni. What better evidence could one ask that some students have been touched by their stay here, and what better encouragement could one seek? This type of generous support plays a critical role in keeping the Department of Economics at Yale in the forefront of both research and teaching.
Q: Change is all around us at Yale today. As you look ahead to tomorrow, what are you most enthusiastic about?
A: I look forward to a stream of eager students and stimulating colleagues, and especially to the stream of new ideas they will inevitably bring with them. Education is playing an increasingly important role in our economy and our society, and I am pleased to play a part in fulfilling this role.
About Larry Samuelson
A distinguished teacher and scholar, Professor Samuelson has published numerous articles, book reviews, and book chapters on economic research and behavior. He is the author of Evolutionary Games and the Equilibrium Selection, and, most recently, Repeated Games and Reputations: Long-Run Relationships, with George J. Mailath.
Samuelson is a coeditor of Econometrica. He serves on the editorial boards of the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Theoretical Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, and the Journal of Economic Theory, having previously also served on the boards of Economic Theory, The Journal of Economic Literature, and The International Journal of Game Theory. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and a member of the international advisory boards for the New Economic School in Moscow and the Scottish Institute for Research in Economics.
Here at Yale, Samuelson is affiliated with the Cowles Foundation and teaches courses in intermediate microeconomics to undergraduates and economic theory and game theory to graduate students.
Samuelson earned his B.A. and Ph.D. in economics at the University of Illinois in Urbana.
(August 6, 2008)
