Oliver Hart
Economist, Nobel Prize in Economics 2016 for contract theory
Born 1948
Photo: Bengt Nyman from Vaxholm, Sweden · CC BY 2.0
«Contracts are incomplete. They can't anticipate everything, so someone has to have the right to decide.»
Oliver Hart showed that because contracts can never specify everything, what matters is who gets to decide when something unexpected happens. His work explains how firms are organised and when public services should be privatised.
Key achievements
- Nobel Prize in Economics, 2016, for contract theory
- Explained who should own a firm and when to privatise
Universities
Coventry, West Midlands
Took a master's degree in economics in 1972 before moving to Princeton for his doctorate.
Princeton, New Jersey
Took his PhD in economics in 1974.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Professor of economics, where he has taught since 1993.
Cambridge, England
Took his first degree in mathematics at King's College.
Facts
- He used his theory to argue against private prisons, on the grounds that cost cutting there damages quality in ways no contract can prevent.
- He said he assumed the early morning phone call announcing his Nobel Prize was a prank.
- He switched from mathematics to economics because he wanted problems that connected to the real world.
Photographs
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and licence are shown on each image.