Nobel winner: Conflict won't stop
By AVI KRAWITZ

Prof. Robert John (Israel) Aumann

Hebrew University Professor of Mathematics Robert J. Aumann, who on Monday won the Nobel prize in economics for his work on using game theory to understand conflict resolution, says he sees no end to the Middle East conflict that claimed the life of his eldest son 23 years ago.

“This conflict has been going on for 80 years and to my sorrow I believe it will last for at least another 80,” Aumann said in a press conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Givat Ram campus, where he resides as a professor emeritus in the Institute of Mathematics and as a member of Center for Rationality.

Aumann, who made aliya from the United States in 1956, shares the prize with Thomas C. Schelling of the University of Maryland. The two were rewarded for “establishing interactive decision [game] theory as the dominant approach to understanding conflict and cooperation between countries, individuals and organizations,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

Aumann and Schelling will receive the prize on December 10 from Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav and will share the 10 million Swedish kronor prize money, which translates to nearly NIS 6m.

Aumann is the fifth Nobel laureate connected to the Hebrew University and is the first active faculty member to receive the award. He has been working at the university for 49 years, since his arrival in the country.

Aumann said the award was a tribute to the many achievements of Israeli science and economics and a recognition of the importance of game theory as a field of study.

“I feel great and am very glad I got the prize, but it’s not just a personal achievement,” he said. “My work is closely tied to those of others, both in Israel and abroad.” In this regard, Aumann added that he felt a third recipient, “the high priest of game theory” Lloyd Chapley, a Professor at UCLA with whom he worked very closely, should have been included in the award.

Aumann’s daughter Miriam Aumann Baris told The Jerusalem Post that the family knew he had been a candidate for the award in the past but had not expected it to come this year.

Hebrew University President Menachem Magidor, a former student of Aumann’s, said that Aumann’s work was deserving of the prize many years ago.

The announcement marked the first time since 1994 that the Royal Academy has awarded the prize to academics who were instrumental in developing game theory. In 1994, the academy passed over Aumann and Schelling in awarding the prize to John C. Harsanyi, Reinhard Selten and John F. Nash, Jr. for their game theory work. Nash’s life and his difficulties with schizophrenia were documented in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind.

Aumann’s and Schelling’s work was “essential” in developing game theory further, the academy said Monday.

The award recognized work the two men did in the 1960s and 1970s that had helped defense analysts use models to map out options available to an adversary and to predict what the other side might do in a confrontation. Their work also had economic applications in such areas as pricing and labor negotiations, the academy said.

“Robert Aumann was the first to conduct a full-fledged formal analysis of socalled infinitely repeated games. His research identified exactly what outcomes can be upheld over time in longrun relations,” it said.
Aumann stressed that, while he received the award for his work on repeated-game theory, this was just one aspect of the broader subjects of game theory in which he was involved.