BenFranklin0

Lloyd Shapley, a 1953 Princeton graduate alumnus in mathematics and professor emeritus at the University of California-Los Angeles, is one of the 2012 recipients of the Nobel Prize in economic sciences "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design." Shapley shared the award with Alvin Roth of Harvard University.

Princeton University - Princeton alumnus Shapley wins Nobel Prize

PtonGrad2000

Game theory has long been associated with Princeton and with John Nash another Princeton graduate alumnus who was instrumental in developing this field of mathematical research. Princeton's economics department currently has three Nobel Prize winners and there are other alumni and faculty members who are frequently mentioned as possible future winners. Shapley did his undergraduate work at Harvard which can also proudly claim him as an alumnus.

YanksDolphins

One of Shapley's first contributions was actually in cooperative game theory (Nash's work was in noncooperative) in which he developed the notion of the Shapley value, which is the unique function satisfying the axioms for a game in characteristic form. He developed this in his dissertation(!) under the supervision of Albert Tucker, who also advised Nash and David Gale (who would have shared in this Nobel had he still been alive).

phantasmagoric

FWIW Alvin Roth is no longer a prof at Harvard, where he's been on leave. For the past year, he's been a visiting prof at Stanford (where he got his PhD), and accepted a permanent position at Stanford 7-8 months ago. His contract officially begins in January.