Paul Milgrom - Biography

Biography

Paul Milgrom was born on April 20, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1970 with an A.B. with high honors in mathematics. In 1975 he enrolled for graduate studies at Stanford University, where he earned an M.S. in statistics in 1978 and a Ph.D. in business in 1979. His thesis advisor, Robert B. Wilson, would later become his collaborator in designing the spectrum auction used by the Federal Communications Commission.

After earning his Ph.D., Milgrom went to teach at Northwestern University, where he stayed from 1979 to 1983. From 1982 to 1987 he was a professor of economics and management at Yale University. In 1987 Milgrom returned as an economics professor to his alma mater, Stanford University, where he is currently the Shirley and Leonard Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences. He was the doctoral thesis advisor for several students, notably John Bates Clark Medal winner Susan Athey.

Paul Milgrom held editorial positions at various prestigious journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica and the Journal of Economic Theory, and has been a fellow of the Econometric Society since 1984. In 1996, he gave the Nobel Prize memorial lecture honoring Nobel prize in economics laureate William Vickrey, who had died three days after the prize announcement. In 2006, Milgrom was elected in the National Academy of Sciences.

Paul Milgrom won the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics in 2008. He won that prize "for contributions dramatically expanding the understanding of the role of information and incentives in a variety of settings, including auctions, the theory of the firm, and oligopolistic markets."

He is married to Eva Meyersson Milgrom and has two children, Josh Thurston-Milgrom and Elana Thurston-Milgrom.