Northwestern University lays claim to the largest and most diverse economic theory faculty in the world through the
Economics Department and the
Kellogg School of Management. Thanks to this faculty we are able to offer an exceptionally broad range of advanced
Economics PhD courses and
Kellogg PhD courses. Additionally, numerous seminars are offered within the Economics Department and the Kellogg School of Management each quarter. The breadth of course topics and seminars (see also the mini-courses and visitors discussed below) provide an important building block to help students identify active areas of research and possible thesis topics.
The MEDS and Economics Departments host a large number of
visitors, some of whom teach
mini-courses. The two groups also organize numerous
conferences, more than at most leading departments. These activities expose students to an extraordinarily wide range of current research while staying on campus, and provide opportunities for students to interact with and obtain feedback on their research from leading scholars from other institutions. This facilitates students' transition from coursework to independent research.
The faculty is devoted to maintaining a high-quality program and to advising PhD students. This can be seen in the quality of instruction and the accessibility of the faculty. Students obtain feedback from numerous faculty members on their research—not only from their advisors. In most areas of theory there are several faculty members available to provide advice and guidance.
The theory faculty at Northwestern University includes four members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and at least eight fellows of the Econometric Society. Northwestern's theory-faculty are currently (i.e., in summer 2010) members of the editorial boards of a large number of journals, including all the leading theory journals, several of the leading general interest journals, and many other (e.g., applied theory) journals. Specifically, there are current editors or coeditors (as of Fall 2010) of the
Review of Economic Studies, Theoretical Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, BE Press Journals: Economic Theory, The International Journal of Game Theory, The Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and the
Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. Among us there is also a previous editor of
Econometrica and coeditor of the
Rand Journal. This is in addition to the theory faculty serving as associate editors and board members of numerous journals.
A list of Northwestern's theory faculty is furnished below. The faculty body at Northwestern University is actively involved in teaching advanced PhD courses, advising PhD students and conducting cutting-edge research in theory. Faculty interests cover a wide range of topics, including decision theory, foundations of game theory, mechanism design, repeated games, reputation, evolution, contract theory, behavioral economics, continuous time modeling, communication, bounded rationality and more.
Economics Department:
Eddie Dekel (decision theory, game theory esp. foundations of game theory, voting)
Jeffrey Ely (game theory, mechanism design, evolution, behavioral economics)
Wojciech Olszewski (information and communication in economics, repeated games, decision theory, mechanism design, reputation.)
Alessandro Pavan (mechanism design esp. dynamic, global games, coordination, information economics)
William Rogerson (industrial organization theory, mechanism design esp. principal-agent, procurement)
Todd Sarver (decision theory)
Ron Siegel (contests, auctions, mechanism design)
Marciano Siniscalchi (foundations of game theory, decision theory)
Bruno Strulovici (microeconomic theory with applications to political and financial economics)
Michael Whinston (game theory, industrial organization theory, information economics.)
Asher Wolinsky (game theory, industrial organization theory, information economics.)
Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences (MEDS):
Nabil Al-Najjar (decision theory, learning, reputation)
Alp Atakan (matching, bargaining, search, repeated games)
David Austen-Smith (political economy, social choice, cheap talk and signaling)
Sandeep Baliga (mechanism design, contract theory, international relations)
Luciano De Castro (auction theory, decision theory)
Daniel Diermeier (political economy)
Wioletta Dziuda (communication in games)
Georgy Egorov (political economy, organizational economics)
Mehmet Ekmekci (repeated games, reputation, bargaining)
Timothy Feddersen (political economy, voting, behavioral economics)
Ronen Gradwohl (game theory, mechanism design, computer science)
Bard Harstad (political economy)
Tai-Wei Hu (complexity, decision theory, monetary economics)
Ehud Kalai (game theory, learning)
Willemien Kets (behavioral economics, game theory, information economics)
Peter Klibanoff (decision theory)
Dylan Minor (behavioral economics, social responsibility, economics of organizations)
Nicola Persico (contract theory, economics of organizations, game theory, political economy)
Brian Rogers (social networks, learning)
Yuval Salant (behavioral economics, bounded rationality, and decision theory)
Alvaro Sandroni (behavioral economics, economic theory)
Mark Satterthwaite (healthcare management, strategy, voting systems)
James Schummer (game theory, mechanism design)
Eran Shmaya (game theory, probability and information theory)
Jakub Steiner (behavioral economics, game theory, information economics)
Rakesh Vohra (mechanism design, learning)
Robert Weber (auction theory, Bayesian games)
Jonathan Weinstein (game theory, higher-order uncertainty)
Operations Management:
The MEDS Department also has a subgroup in Operations Management that combines queuing theory and stochastic processes with economic theory to examine the behavior of manufacturing and service systems.
Gad Allon
Baris Ata
Achal Bassamboo
Sunil Chopra
Sudhakar Deshmukh
Itai Gurvich
Jan Van Mieghem
Management and Strategy (M&S):
David Besanko (industrial economics, public policy, regulation)
Jin Li (contract theory, economics of organizations, information economics)
Jeroen Swinkels (contract theory, economics of organizations, game theory, information Economics)
Finance:
The list of faculty provided below focuses on micro-finance; there is an excellent set of macro-finance faculty as well.
Snehal Banerjee (behavioral finance)
Michael Fishman (corporate finance, information economics)
Kathleen Hagerty (market microstructure)
Dimitris Papanikolaou (asset pricing)
Jonathan Parker (macro but with interests in psychology and behavioral finance)
Artur Raviv (corporate finance, information economics)
Costis Skiadas (asset pricing)
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS):
The research expertise of the EECS faculty listed below is in the areas of algorithmic game theory, algorithmic mechanism design and social networks.
Lance Fortnow
Jason Hartline
Nicole Immorlica
Ming-Yang Kao
