George J. Mailath

Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences; Professor of Economics. Research interests include noncooperative game theory, evolutionary game theory, repeated games, social norms, and the foundations of reputations. Contributed to the theory of learning and more generally games with asymmetric information. Recent research has focused on the sustainability of cooperation and reputations in long-run relationships. Conjectures that although, often, the behavior of individuals is not observed by others, there may be imperfect information that allows opportunistic behavior to be controlled. In recent work, has argued, with Stephen Morris, that in some situations of imperfect monitoring, punishment is necessarily only temporary. Elsewhere, with Martin Cripps and Larry Samuelson, has argued that imperfect information also implies that any reputation for good behavior (or high quality products, etc.) that person or a company attempts to develop will likewise be necessarily temporary. Oxford University Press published the coauthored (with Larry Samuelson) graduate text Repeated Games and Reputations; Long Run Relationships in 2006. Elected fellow of the Econometric Society in 1995. Served as member of the Economics Advisory Panel of the National Science Foundation. Co-founder and past editor of Theoretical Economics.