William Vickrey

Lore & Background

Vickrey was born in Victoria, British Columbia to Charles Vernon Vickrey, a Congregationalist minister, and Ada Eliza Spencer. His family moved to New York City in his childhood, where his father served as General Secretary of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief. Vickrey attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, earned a B.S. in Mathematics from Yale University in 1935, and completed an M.A. at Columbia University in 1937. His doctoral work at Columbia was interrupted by World War II, during which he worked for the U.S. National Resources Planning Board and the Treasury Department's Division of Tax Research; he finished his PhD in 1948 with a 500-page dissertation titled 'An Agenda for Progressive Taxation.'

Vickrey remained at Columbia for his entire career. He married Cecile Thompson in 1951 and was a Quaker, belonging to Scarsdale Friends Meeting. His students included economists Jacques Drèze, Harvey J. Levin, and Lynn Turgeon. Vickrey's economic philosophy was influenced by John Maynard Keynes and Henry George, and he was sharply critical of the Chicago school of economics. He helped accomplish radical land reform in Japan while working under General MacArthur.

Reader's Guide

Vickrey's significance lies in his pioneering use of game theory to analyze auctions, culminating in the Vickrey auction and the revenue equivalence theorem, which remains central to modern auction theory. He introduced congestion pricing, arguing that roads and services should be priced to reflect the costs of full usage, a theory later partially implemented in London. In public economics, he extended marginal cost pricing, contending that public goods and utilities should be priced at short-run marginal cost. He also advocated for land value taxation as an efficient way to fund city services, arguing it would improve economic efficiency and replace taxes on production and labor. His work on optimal income taxation and asymmetric information, shared with James Mirrlees, earned him the 1996 Nobel Prize. Vickrey was vocal against balanced-budget policies and fighting inflation during high unemployment. His legacy endures in auction design, transportation economics, and public finance.

Did You Know?

• Vickrey never personally received his Nobel Prize; it was announced three days before his death.
• He was the only Nobel laureate born in British Columbia.
• Vickrey helped accomplish radical land reform in Japan while working under General MacArthur.
• He was a Quaker and a member of Scarsdale Friends Meeting.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"William Spencer Vickrey (21 June 1914 – 11 October 1996) was a Canadian-born professor of economics and with James Mirrlees the winner of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences." — William Vickrey "Market Anti-Inflation PlansIn such a context, it should be clear that balancing a nominal budget will solve nothing, and attempting to achieve such a spurious balance will produce much mischief." — William Vickrey "Jacques Drèze "WILLIAM S. VICKREY June 21, 1914–October 11, 1996 BY JACQUES H. DRÈZE," at nasonline.org." — William Vickrey