List of game theorists

This is a list of notable economists, mathematicians, political scientists, and computer scientists whose work has added substantially to the field of game theory.

A

• Derek Abbott – quantum game theory and Parrondo's games
• Susanne Albers – algorithmic game theory and algorithm analysis
• Kenneth Arrow – voting theory (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972)
• Robert Aumann – equilibrium theory (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2005)
• Robert Axelrod – repeated Prisoner's Dilemma

B

• Tamer Başar – dynamic game theory and application robust control of systems with uncertainty
• Cristina Bicchieri – epistemology of game theory
• Olga Bondareva – Bondareva–Shapley theorem
• Steven Brams – cake cutting, fair division, theory of moves

C

• Jennifer Tour Chayes – algorithmic game theory and auction algorithms
• John Horton Conway – combinatorial game theory
• Antoine Augustin Cournot – monopoly and oligopoly games

F

• Drew Fudenberg – repeated games and reputation effects

H

• William Hamilton – evolutionary biology
• John Harsanyi – equilibrium theory (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994)
• Monika Henzinger – algorithmic game theory and information retrieval
• John Hicks – general equilibrium theory (including Kaldor–Hicks efficiency)
• Naira Hovakimyan – differential games and adaptive control
• Peter L. Hurd – evolution of aggressive behavior

I

• Rufus Isaacs – differential games

K

• Ehud Kalai – Kalai–Smorodinsky bargaining solution, rational learning, strategic complexity
• Anna Karlin – algorithmic game theory and online algorithms
• Michael Kearns – algorithmic game theory and computational social science
• Sarit Kraus – non-monotonic reasoning

M

• John Maynard Smith – evolutionary biology
• Oskar Morgenstern – social organization
• Roger Myerson – mechanism design (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2007)

N

• John Forbes Nash – Nash equilibrium (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994)
• John von Neumann – Minimax theorem, expected utility, social organization, arms race
• Abraham Neyman – Stochastic games, Shapley value

P

• J. M. R. Parrondo – games with a reversal of fortune, such as Parrondo's games
• Charles E. M. Pearce – games applied to queuing theory
• George R. Price – theoretical and evolutionary biology
• Anatol Rapoport – Mathematical psychologist, early proponent of tit-for-tat in repeated Prisoner's Dilemma

R

• Julia Robinson – proved that fictitious play dynamics converges to the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium in two-player zero-sum games
• Alvin E. Roth – market design (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2012)
• Ariel Rubinstein – bargaining theory, learning and language

S

• Thomas Jerome Schaefer – computational complexity of perfect-information games
• Suzanne Scotchmer – patent law incentive models
• Reinhard Selten – bounded rationality (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994)
• Claude Shannon – studied cryptography and chess; sometimes called "the father of information theory"
• Lloyd Shapley – Shapley value and core concept in coalition games (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2012)
• Eilon Solan – Stochastic games, stopping games
• Thomas Schelling – bargaining (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2005) and models of segregation

T

• Éva Tardos – algorithmic game theory
• Stef Tijs – cooperative game theory (including the Tijs value)

V

• William Vickrey – auction theory

W

• Myrna Wooders – coalition theory