Lloyd S. Shapley, 92, Nobel Laureate and a Father of Game Theory, Is Dead
By BARRY MEIER

Lloyd S. Shapley, who shared the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science for work on game theory that has been used to study subjects as diverse as matching couples and allocating costs, died on Saturday in Tucson. He was 92.

He broke a hip several weeks ago, his son Peter said in confirming the death.

Dr. Shapley, a mathematician and emeritus professor at U.C.L.A., was considered one of the fathers of game theory, which tries to explain the choices that competitors make in situations that require strategic thinking. The “Shapley value,” named for him, is a concept through which the benefits of cooperation can be proportionally divided among participants based on their relative contribution.

He was a close friend and mentor to John Forbes Nash Jr., a mathematician and Nobel laureate who had schizophrenia. Sylvia Nasar, a former reporter for The New York Times, devoted a chapter in her 1998 biography of Mr. Nash, “A Beautiful Mind,” to the men’s friendship. (The book was adapted for a 2001 film.)

Ms. Nasar said the book’s title was suggested by a remark by Dr. Shapley. “He was obnoxious,” Ms. Nasar quoted him as saying about Nash. “What redeemed him was a keen, beautiful, logical mind.”

Born in Cambridge, Mass., on June 2, 1923, Lloyd Stowell Shapley was one of five children of Martha and Harlow Shapley, a noted astronomer at Harvard University. He was studying mathematics at Harvard when World War II started, and left to join the Army Air Corps. He was assigned to a weather station at a secret air base in western China that also intercepted broadcasts. There he earned a Bronze Star for deciphering a Soviet weather code. After the war, he earned degrees from Harvard and Princeton University.

In a 1962 paper he co-wrote, Dr. Shapley explained how individuals, like those seeking a partner, could be placed in a stable relationship even if they disagreed about the qualities that made a perfect match. His ideas laid the groundwork for the development of other matching systems, like ones involving kidney donors and recipients.

He worked at the RAND Corporation before joining the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1981. “Dr. Shapley was one of the giants of game theory,” Gene Block, the chancellor of U.C.L.A., said in a statement.

Dr. Shapley and Alvin E. Roth, a Harvard professor, received the Nobel Prize in 2012 in recognition of their work on market design and matching theory. While they did not work together, Professor Roth applied Dr. Shapley’s ideas to practical problems.

In announcing the award, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences described their work as addressing a central economic problem: how to match different agents as well as possible. “For example,” the citation said, “students have to be matched with schools, and donors of human organs with patients in need of a transplant.”

Dr. Shapley expressed surprise when told about the economics award. “I’m a mathematician, I’m not an economist,” he said. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University recently developed a website called Spliddit, which uses the Shapley value concept to help people divide the costs of shared rents or cab rides equitably.

Besides his son Peter, Dr. Shapley is survived by another son, Christopher, and two grandchildren. His wife of 42 years, Marian, died in 1997.

諾貝爾經濟學獎得主夏普利病逝 享壽92歲

因為提出賽局理論而共同榮獲2012年諾貝爾經濟學獎的美國學者夏普利12日病逝於亞利桑納州土桑市，享壽92歲。

夏普利長年擔任蘭德公司的研究數學家。該公司說，夏普利數周前摔斷髖骨後，健康開始惡化。

半個世紀前，夏普利即已提出分析市場配對的賽局理論，並因為這項成就而與哈佛大學、史丹福大學經濟學教授羅斯共同榮獲2012年的諾貝爾經濟學獎。夏普利獲獎時，是洛杉磯加大榮譽教授。

夏普利以他的公式為價格無法發揮作用的市場供需配對，羅斯則將他的理論運用於真實世界。兩人研究醫生與醫院、學生與學校、捐贈器官與受贈者之間的配對關係。瑞典皇家科學院表示，他們的研究成果促成「遍地開花的研究領域」，而且有助於改善許多市場的表現。

夏普利當初得知獲獎時說：「我自認是數學家，這個獎則屬於經濟學領域。我此生從未涉獵經濟學。」夏普利1954年成為蘭德公司的研究數學家，1981年離職後，轉任洛杉磯加大經濟學與數學教授。

蘭德公司說，夏普利的研究結晶至今仍然是學術界經常討論的主題之一。2013年在伊斯坦堡舉行的一項學術會議專門討論他1953年發展的「夏普利值」。這個概念可用於評估每一個個體對團隊的貢獻，團隊的價值則大於全部個體的總和。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/business/economy/lloyd-s-shapley-92-nobel-laureate-and-a-father-of-game-theory-is-dead.html

2016-03-15．聯合晚報．A6．國際焦點．編譯陳世欽