Profile Major Works Resources

Thomas C. Schelling, 1921-2016

Photo of T.C.Schelling from AER

Innovative applied game theorist.

Originating from Oakland, California, Thomas C. Schelling obtained his BA from Berkeley and his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1951.  After a period as an adviser at the White House and several government agencies, Schelling joined the faculty at Yale in 1953, an subsequently Harvard in 1958, where he remained until 1990.   He has been a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, since.

Schelling most influential work, developed during an interlude at RAND corporation in 1958-59, is his Strategy of Conflict (1960) applying game-theoretic concepts to the analysis of real world situations, building up to international relations and military strategy, often deriving unintuitive and surprising conclusions.  His 1978 book is no less masterly, using game theory  to show how aggregate behavior, mass phenomena and institutions can emerge from small, seemingly inconsequential changes in individual behavior.  A famous example is the inadvertent emergence of racial segregation in cities where the population does not have deep racial prejudices.  Although firmly attached to rational choice, Schelling has sometimes been classified as a behavioral economist.

Thomas Schelling won the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in 2005, with Robert Aumann, "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis".

 

  

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Major Works of Thomas C. Schelling

  • "An Essay on Bargaining", 1956, AER [pdf]
  • The Strategy of Conflict, 1960. [pdf]
  • "Experimental Games and Bargaining Theory", 1960, World Politics.
  • "The Future of Arms Control", 1961, Operations Research [pdf]
  • Strategy and Arms Control, with M. Halperin, 1961
  • "Economics and Criminal Enterprise", 1967, Public Interest
  • "The Life you save may be your own", 1968, in S.B. Chase, editor, Problems in Public Expenditure Analysis
  • "Models of Segregation", 1969, AER
  • "Dynamic Models of Segregation", 1971, J of Math Sociology [pdf]
  • "On the Ecology of Micromotives", 1971, Public Interest
  • "The process of residential segregation: neighborhood tipping“, 1972, in A.H. Pascal, editor, Racial Discrimination in Economic Life.
  • "Hockey Helmets, Concealed Weapons and Daylight Saving: a study of binary choice with externalities", 1973, J of Conflict Resolution  [pdf]
  • Arms and Influence, 1976.
  • Micromotives and Macrobehavior, 1978.
  • Thinking Through the Energy Problem, 1979.
  • "The Intimate Contest for Self-Command", 1980, Public Interest
  • Ethics, Law and the Exercise of Self-Control, 1982 [pdf]
  • Incentives for Environmental Protection, 1983.
  • "Self-Command in Practice, in Policy and in a Theory of Rational Choice", 1984, AER
  • "The Mind as a Consuming Organ", 1984, AER
  • Choice and Consequence, 1985.
  • Strategy and Arms Control, 1986
  • "The Thirtieth Year", 1991, Daedalus
  • "Some Economics of Global Warming", 1992, AER [pdf, html]
  • Bargaining, Communication and Limited War, 1993.
  • "The Cost of Combating Global Warming", 1997, Foreign Affairs [pdf]
  • "An Astonishing Sixty Years - the Legacy of Hiroshima", 2005, Nobel memorial lecture [nobel: pdf, site]
  • Strategies of Commitment and other essays, 2006
  • "Greenhouse Effect" at Concise Encyclopedia of Economics [Lib]
  • "A World without Nuclear Weapons?", 2009, Daedalus [online]

 
HET

 
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Resources on Thomas Schelling

  • Thomas Schelling's faculty page at Maryland.
  • Thomas Schelling page at Nobel Prize.org, including autobiography, prize lecture and interview
  • "Distinguished Fellow: Thomas Schelling" by R. Zeckhauser, 1989, JEP (pdf)
  • "Learning from Schelling's Strategy of Conflict" by Roger Myerson (pdf)
  • "Thomas Schelling's contributions to game theory" by Avinash Dixit, 2006, Scand JE (pdf)
  • "Thomas Schelling, Ricochet Thinker" by R. Zeckhauser, 2006, in R. Dodge, editor, The Strategist: the life and times of Thomas Schelling (pdf)
  • "Some like it Cold: Thomas Schelling as a cold warrior" by Esther-Mirjam Sent, 2006 (pdf)
  • "Thomas C. Schelling's Psychological Decision Theory: Introduction to a special issue" by A.D. Colman, 2006, J of Econ Pyschology (pdf)
  • "An Interview with Thomas C. Schelling: Interpretation of Game Theory and the Checkerboard Model" by N.Emrah Aydinonat, 2006 Economics Bulletin [ssrn]
  • "Interview with Thomas Schelling" at the Atlantic, 2009: pt.1, pt.2
  • "Interview with Thomas Schelling" at the FRB Richmond 2009 (pdf)
  • "Interview with Thomas Schelling" by Carvalho, at Oxonomics (pdf)
  • "Game Changer" by Robert Dodge, Harvard Kennedy Magazine [online]
  • "Arms control and beyond: review of Schelling & Halperin" by J.D. Singer, 1961, Conflict Resolution (pdf)
  • Schelling's model of segregation by Frank McCown at Stanford [online]
  • "Schelling Redux: An Evolutionary Dynamic Model of Residential Segregation" by E. Dokumaci an W.H. Sandholm, 2007 [pdf]
  • "Thomas Schelling and Policy Analysis" at Claremont Grad Univ (pdf)
  • "Thomas Schelling" by David Latzko (pdf)
  • Schelling page at NNDB
  • Schelling entry at NAS
  • "Who Benefits from the Long-Term Effort to Slow Global Warming and Who Should Participate? " by Schelling at Elements of Change
  • "Thomas Schelling" in New Palgrave (draft, pdf)
  • Schelling page at eumed.
  • Schelling entry at Britannica
  • Thomas Shelling at Wiki

 

 
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