John Harsanyi

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John Charles Harsanyi (May 29, 1920 – August 9, 2000) was a Hungarian-Australian-American business and economics professor who contributed to the study of game theory in mathematics by developing the analysis of games of incomplete information. He also made important contributions to the use of game theory and economic reasoning in moral and political philosophy.

For his work, he was a co-recipient along with John Nash and Reinhard Selten of the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

Harsanyi was born in Budapest, Hungary and educated at the University of Budapest (today: Eötvös Loránd University) where he earned a PhD in Philosophy with a minor in sociology. From September 1947 to June 1948, he served as a junior faculty member at the University Institute of Sociology. After moving to Sydney, Australia, he attained a Master of Economics at the University of Sydney in 1966. He later moved to the US, where he earned a second PhD in economics from Stanford University. He died in 2000 after a longtime professorship in the school of business at the University of California, Berkeley.