Oxford University
Who did James Mirrlees work for from 1968 to 1995?
James Mirrlees Sir James Alexander Mirrlees ( 5 July 1936 – 29 August 2018 ) was a British economist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences . He was knighted in the 1997 Birthday Honours . Early life and education . Born in Minnigaff , Kirkcudbrightshire , Mirrlees was educated at Douglas Ewart High School , then at the University of Edinburgh ( MA in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in 1957 ) and Trinity College , Cambridge ( Mathematical Tripos and PhD in 1963 with thesis title Optimum Planning for a Dynamic Economy , supervised by Richard Stone ) . He was a very active student debater . A contemporary , Quentin Skinner , has suggested that Mirrlees was a member of the Cambridge Apostles along with fellow Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen during the period . Economics . Between 1968 and 1976 , Mirrlees was a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology three times . He was also a visiting professor at the University of California , Berkeley ( 1986 ) and Yale University ( 1989 ) . He taught at both Oxford University ( as Edgeworth Professor of Economics 1968–1995 ) and University of Cambridge ( 1963–1968 and 1995–2018 ) . During his time at Oxford , he published papers on economic models for which he would eventually be awarded his Nobel Prize . The papers centred on asymmetric information , which determines the extent to which they should affect the optimal rate of saving in an economy . Among other results , he demonstrated the principles of moral hazard and optimal income taxation discussed in the books of William Vickrey . The methodology has since become the standard in the field . Mirrlees and Vickrey shared the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information . Mirrlees was also co-creator , with MIT Professor Peter A . Diamond , of the Diamond–Mirrlees efficiency theorem , which was developed in 1971 . Mirrlees was emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College , Cambridge . He spent several months a year at the University of Melbourne , Australia . He was the Distinguished Professor-at-Large of the Chinese University of Hong Kong as well as University of Macau . In 2009 , he was appointed Founding Master of the Morningside College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong . Mirrlees was a member of Scotlands Council of Economic Advisers . He also led the Mirrlees Review , a review of the UK tax system by the Institute for Fiscal Studies . His Ph.D . students included eminent academics and policy makers like professor Franklin Allen , Sir Partha Dasgupta , professor Huw Dixon , professor Hyun-Song Shin , Lord Nicholas Stern , professor Anthony Venables , Sir John Vickers , and professor Zhang Weiying . He died in Cambridge , England , on 29 August 2018 . Personal life . Mirrlees was an atheist . Publications . - A New Model of Economic Growth ( with N . Kaldor ) , RES , 1962 - Optimum Growth When Technology is Changing , RES , 1967 - The Dynamic Nonsubstitution Theorem , RES , 1969 - The Evaluation of National Income in an Imperfect Economy , Pakistan Development Review , 1969 - Manual of Industrial Project Analysis in Developing Countries , Vol II : Social Cost Benefit Analysis ( with I.M.D . Little ) , 1969 - An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation , RES , 1971 - Optimal Taxation and Public Production I : Production Efficiency ( with P.A . Diamond ) , AER , 1971 - Optimal Taxation and Public Production II : Tax Rules ( with P.A . Diamond ) ,AER , 1971 - The Terms of Trade : Pearson on Trade , Debt , and Liquidity , in The Widening Gap ( ed . Barbara Ward ) , 1971 ) - On Producer Taxation , RES , 1972 - Further Reflections on Project Analysis ( with I.M.D . Little ) , Development and Planning . Essays for Paul Rosenstein-Rodan ( eds . Bhagwati and Eckaus , 1972 - Fairly Good Plans ( with N.H . Stern ) , Journal of Economic Theory , 1972 - Aggregate Production with Consumption Externalities ( with P.A . Diamond ) , QJE , 1973 - The Optimum Town , Swedish Journal of Economics , 1972 - Population Policy and the Taxation of Family Size , Journal of Public Economics , 1972 *Agreeable Plans ( with P.J . Hammond ) and Models of Economic Growth ( introduction ) , in Models of Economic Growth ( ed . Mirrlees and Stern ) , 1973 - Project Appraisal and Planning for Developing Countries ( with I.M.D . Little ) , 1974 - Optimal Accumulation under Uncertainty : the Case of Stationary Returns to Investment , in Allocation under Uncertainty ( ed . J . Dreze ) , 1974 - Notes on Welfare Economics , Information and Uncertainty , in Essays in Equilibrium Behavior under Uncertainty ( eds . M . Balch , D . McFadden , and S . Wu ) , 1974 - Optimal Taxation in a Two-Class Economy , Journal of Public Economics , 1975 - Optimum Saving with Economies of Scale ( with A.K . Dixit and N.H . Stern ) , RES , 1975 - A Pure Theory of Underdeveloped Economies , using a Relationship between Consumption and Productivity , in Agriculture in Development Theory ( ed . L . Reynolds ) , 1975 - The Desirability of Natural Resource Depletion ( with J.A . Kay ) , in The Economics of Natural Resource Depletion ( ed . D.W . Pearce ) , 1975 - The Optimal Structure of Incentives and Authority within an Organization , Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science , 1976 - On the Assignment of Liability : the Uniform Case ( with P.A . Diamond ) , Bell Journal of Economics , 1975 - Private Constant Returns and Public Shadow Prices ( with P.A . Diamond ) , RES , 1976 - Optimal Tax Theory : A Synthesis , Journal of Public Economics , December 1976 - Implications for Tax Rates , in Taxation and Incentives , 1976 - Arguments for Public Expenditure in Contemporary Economic Analysis ( eds . Artis and Nobay ) , 1979 - Social Benefit-Cost Analysis and the Distribution of Income , World Development , 1978 - A Model of Optimal Social Insurance with Variable Retirement ( with P.A . Diamond ) , Journal of Public Economics , 1978 - Optimal Taxation in a Stochastic Economy : A Cobb-Douglas Example ( with P.A . Diamond and J . Helms ) , Journal of Public Economics , 1980 - Optimal Foreign-income taxation , Journal of Public Economics , 1982 - The economic uses of utilitarianism , in - The Theory of Optimum Taxation , Handbook of Mathematical Economics ( eds . Arrow and Intriligator ) , Vol.III , 1985 - Insurance Aspects of Pensions ( with P.A . Diamond ) , in Pensions , Labor and Individual Choice ( ed . David A . Wise ) , 1985 - Payroll-tax financed social insurance with variable retirement ( with P . A . Diamond ) , Scandinavian Journal of Economics , 1986 - Taxing Uncertain Incomes , Oxford Economic Papers , 1990 - Project Appraisal and Planning Twenty Years On ( with I.M.D . Little ) , in Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics 1990 ( eds . Stanley Fischer , Dennis de Tray and Shekhar Shah ) , 1991 - Optimal Taxation of Identical Consumers when markets are incomplete ( with P.A . Diamond ) , in Economic Analysis of Markets and Games ( ed . Dasgupta , Gale , Hart and Maskin ) , 1992 - Optimal Taxation and Government Finance in Modern Public Finance ( eds . Quigley and Smolensky ) , 1994 - Welfare Economics and Economies of Scale , Japanese Economic Review , 1995 - Private Risk and Public Action : The Economies of the Welfare State , European Economic Review , 1995 - Tax by Design : the Mirrlees Review , J . Mirrlees , S . Adam , T . Besley , R . Blundell , S . Bond , R . Chote , M . Gammie , P . Johnson , G . Myles and J . Poterba , , Oxford University Press : September 2011 . Further reading . - Richard Blundell , Ian Preston . 25 January 2019 . Principles of tax design , public policy and beyond : The ideas of James Mirrlees , 1936-2018 External links . - Biographic speech from The Chinese University of Hong Kong - James Mirrlees interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 21 July 2009 ( video ) - including the Prize Lecture December 9 , 1996 Information and Incentives : The Economics of Carrots and Sticks