:Thomas Schelling

Schelling was born on April 14, 1921, in Oakland, California.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2005/schelling-facts.html|title=Thomas C. Schelling – Facts|website=www.nobelprize.org|publisher=Nobel Foundation|access-date=December 13, 2016}} He graduated from San Diego High School. He received his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1944 and received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1951.

Schelling served with the Marshall Plan in Europe, the White House, and the Executive Office of the President from 1948 to 1953.{{cite web|title=Curriculum Vitae: Thomas C. Schelling |url=http://www.puaf.umd.edu/facstaff/faculty/SchellingCV.htm |publisher=University of Maryland School of Public Policy |year=2008 |access-date=2008-09-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070703115122/http://www.puaf.umd.edu/facstaff/faculty/SchellingCV.htm |archive-date=July 3, 2007}} He wrote most of his dissertation on national income behavior working at night while in Europe. He left government to join the economics faculty at Yale University.

In 1956, "he joined the RAND Corporation as an adjunct fellow, becoming a full-time researcher for a year after leaving Yale, and returning to adjunct status through 2002."{{Cite web|url=https://www.rand.org/news/announcements/2005/10/11.html|title=Nobel Committee Honors Former RAND Economist Thomas Schelling|website=www.rand.org|language=en|access-date=2017-11-16}} In 1958 Schelling was appointed professor of economics at Harvard. That same year, he "co-founded the Center for International Affairs, which was [later] renamed the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs."{{Cite news|url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/12/thomas-schelling-game-theory-pioneer-95/|title=Thomas Schelling, Nobelist and game theory pioneer, 95|date=2016-12-14|work=Harvard Gazette|access-date=2017-11-16|language=en-US}}

In 1969, Schelling joined Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy. He was among the "founding fathers" of the "modern" Kennedy School, as he helped to shift the curriculum's emphasis away from administration and more toward leadership.

Between 1994 and 1999, he conducted research at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), in Laxenburg, Austria.

In 1990, he left Harvard and joined the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and the University of Maryland Department of Economics.{{Cite web|url=http://publicpolicy.umd.edu/newsroom/faculty/memory-thomas-schelling|title=In Memory of Thomas Schelling|last=Campbell|first=Megan|date=December 13, 2016|website=publicpolicy.umd.edu|publisher=University of Maryland School of Public Policy|access-date=December 13, 2016|archive-date=December 31, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231094501/https://www.publicpolicy.umd.edu/newsroom/faculty/memory-thomas-schelling|url-status=dead}} In 1991, he accepted the presidency of the American Economic Association, an organization of which he was also a Distinguished Fellow.{{Cite web|url=https://www.eur.nl/eur/universitaireplechtigheden/diesnatalis/archief_dies_natalis/2003/schelling/|title=Honorary Doctorate for professor Thomas C. Schelling|date=2014-09-29|website=www.eur.nl|language=nl|others=Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam|access-date=2017-11-16|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117072840/https://www.eur.nl/eur/universitaireplechtigheden/diesnatalis/archief_dies_natalis/2003/schelling/|archive-date=November 17, 2017|df=mdy-all}}

In 1995, he accepted the presidency of the Eastern Economic Association.{{Cite web|url=http://www.necsi.edu/faculty/schelling.html|title=Thomas C. Schelling {{!}} NECSI|website=www.necsi.edu|access-date=2017-11-16}}

Schelling was a contributing participant of the Copenhagen Consensus.{{cite web|title=Thomas Schelling|url=http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/expert/thomas-schelling|website=Copenhagen Consensus|access-date=16 January 2016}}

In 1977, Schelling received The Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy.

In 1993, he was awarded the Award for Behavior Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War from the National Academy of Sciences.{{cite web |title=NAS Award for Behavior Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War |url=http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_behavioral_research |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604040753/http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_behavioral_research |archive-date=2011-06-04 |publisher=National Academy of Sciences |access-date=February 16, 2011}}

He received honorary doctorates from Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2003, Yale University in 2009, and RAND Graduate School of Public Analysis, as well as an honorary degree from the University of Manchester in 2010.{{Cite web|url=https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/article/?id=6276|title=Nobel prize winner delivers SCI annual lecture|website=The University of Manchester}}

He was awarded the 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, along with Robert Aumann, for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis."

In 2008 he was the Witten Lecturer at the Witten/Herdecke University as the awardee of the Witten Lectures in Economics and Philosophy.{{Cite web |last=Witten Lectures in Economics and Philosophy |date=2008 |title=2. Witten Lectures in Economics and Philosophy |url=http://wittenlectures.org/Home.html |access-date=19 August 2024}}

Schelling was married to Corinne Tigay Saposs from 1947 to 1991, with whom he had four sons. Later in 1991 he married Alice M. Coleman, who brought two sons to the marriage; they became his stepsons.{{cite web |title=Thomas C. Schelling |url=http://www.nndb.com/people/332/000116981/ |work=The Notable Names Database |year=2008 |access-date=2008-11-18}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/business/american-and-israeli-share-nobel-prize-in-economics.html|title=American and Israeli Share Nobel Prize in Economics|last=Uchitelle|first=Louis|date=2005-10-11|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-11-16|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}

Schelling died on December 13, 2016, in Bethesda, Maryland, from complications following a hip fracture at the age of 95.

Schelling's family auctioned his Nobel award medal, fetching $187,000. They donated this money to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an American 501 nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Alice Schelling said her late husband had credited Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James, the winner of the Newbery Medal in 1927, as the most influential book he had read.Levin, Sala (June 8, 2018). [http://terp.umd.edu/a-golden-opportunity/#.Wx-RbtMvzXS Family of Late UMD Professor Auctions Nobel Medal to Fight Hate]. http://terp.umd.edu/

{{anchor|The Strategy of Conflict}}

The Strategy of Conflict, which Schelling published in 1960,{{cite book |title=The Strategy of Conflict |last=Schelling |first=Thomas C. |year=1980 |edition=Reprint, illustrated and revised. |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0674840317 |page=309 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7RkL4Z8Yg5AC&q=thomas+schelling+strategy+of+conflict |access-date=September 21, 2010}} pioneered the study of bargaining and strategic behavior in what he refers to as "conflict behavior."{{Cite journal |last=Powell |first=Robert |date=2006 |title=War as a Commitment Problem |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020818306060061 |journal=International Organization |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages= |doi=10.1017/s0020818306060061 |doi-broken-date=November 5, 2024 |issn=0020-8183 |via= |s2cid=15861342}} The Times Literary Supplement in 1995 ranked it as one of the 100 most influential books in the 50 years since 1945.{{Cite web|url=http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grttls.html|title=100 Most Influential Books Since the War (TLS)|first=Robert|last=Teeter|website=www.interleaves.org}} In this book Schelling introduced concepts such as the "focal point" and "credible commitment." In a 1961 review, International Relations scholar Morton Kaplan described the book as a "strikingly original contribution" and a "landmark in the literature."{{Cite journal |last=Kaplan |first=Morton A. |date=1961 |title=Strategy and International Politics |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/world-politics/article/abs/strategy-and-international-politics/B8D7B5793A4954C5BA499EC6F2AA78E8 |journal=World Politics |language=en |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=642–652 |doi=10.2307/2009441 |jstor=2009441 |s2cid=144001424 |issn=1086-3338|url-access=subscription }}

Schelling's book comprised a series of scholarly journal articles that he had published over the period 1957–1960.

Schelling encourages in his work a strategic view toward conflict that is equally "rational" and "successful." He believes that conflict cannot be based merely on one's intelligence but must also address the "advantages" associated with a course of action. He considers that the advantages that are gleaned should be firmly fixed in a value system that is both "explicit" and "consistent."

Also, conflict has a distinct meaning. In Schelling's approach, it is not enough to defeat an opponent, but one must also seize opportunities to co-operate of which there are usually many. He points out that it is only on the rarest of occasions, in what is known as "pure conflict," that the participants' interests are implacably opposed. He uses the example of "a war of complete extermination" to illustrate this phenomenon.

Co-operation, if available, may take many forms and thus potentially involve everything from "deterrence, limited war, and disarmament" to "negotiation." Indeed, it is through such actions that participants are left with less of a conflict and more of a "bargaining situation." The bargaining itself is best thought of in terms of the other participant's actions, as any gains one might realize are highly dependent upon the "choices or decisions" of their opponent.

Communication between parties, though, is another matter entirely. Verbal or written communication is known as "explicit," and involves such activities as "offering concessions." What happens, though, when this type of communication becomes impossible or improbable? This is when something called "tacit maneuvers" become important. Think of this as action-based communication. Schelling uses the example of one's occupation or evacuation of strategic territory to illustrate this latter communication method.

In an article celebrating Schelling's Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics,[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/11/AR2005101101336.html "A Nobel Laureate Who's Got Game"], The Washington Post, October 12, 2005. Michael Kinsley, Washington Post op‑ed columnist and one of Schelling's former students, anecdotally summarizes Schelling's reorientation of game theory thus: "[Y]ou're standing at the edge of a cliff, chained by the ankle to someone else. You'll be released, and one of you will get a large prize, as soon as the other gives in. How do you persuade the other guy to give in, when the only method at your disposal—threatening to push him off the cliff—would doom you both? Answer: You start dancing, closer and closer to the edge. That way, you don't have to convince him that you would do something totally irrational: plunge him and yourself off the cliff. You just have to convince him that you are prepared to take a higher risk than he is of accidentally falling off the cliff. If you can do that, you win."

Schelling's theories about war were extended in Arms and Influence, published in 1966.{{Cite web|url=http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300002211|title=Arms and Influence – Schelling, Thomas C. – Yale University Press|date=January 7, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160107193224/http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300002211|archive-date=January 7, 2016}}{{Cite journal |last=Leites |first=Nathan |date=1967 |title=Weakening the Belief in General War: Schelling on Strikes |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/world-politics/article/abs/weakening-the-belief-in-general-war-schelling-on-strikes/49FC8EB55E8BEDBCF7A1A91B0EB1A4D9 |journal=World Politics |language=en |volume=19 |issue=4 |pages=709–719 |doi=10.2307/2009722 |jstor=2009722 |issn=1086-3338|url-access=subscription }} According to the publisher, the book "carries forward the analysis so brilliantly begun in his earlier The Strategy of Conflict (1960) and Strategy and Arms Control (with Morton Halperin, 1961), and makes a significant contribution to the growing literature on modern war and diplomacy." Chapter headings include The Diplomacy of Violence, The Diplomacy of Ultimate Survival and The Dynamics of Mutual Alarm.

Within the work, Schelling discusses military capabilities and how they can be used as bargaining power. Instead of considering only the choices that are available on a surface level, one can think ahead to try to influence the other party to come to the desired conclusion. Specifically, Schelling mentions the actions taken by the U.S. during the Cuban and Berlin crises and how they functioned as not only preparation for war but also signals. For example, Schelling points out that the bombing of North Vietnam "is as much coercive as tactical."{{Cite web|url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300143379/arms-and-influence|title=Arms and Influence {{!}} Yale University Press|website=yalebooks.yale.edu|access-date=2019-11-14}} Not only was the bombing to cripple their enemies armies, but it also served to bring Vietnam to the table for negotiations. Much of this writing was influenced largely due to Schelling's personal interest in Game Theory and its application to nuclear armaments.

Schelling's work influenced Robert Jervis.{{Cite web|last=Jervis|first=Robert|date=March 4, 2020|title=H-Diplo Essay 198- Robert Jervis on Learning the Scholar's Craft|url=https://issforum.org/essays/198-jervis|access-date=June 8, 2021|website=H-Diplo {{!}} ISSF|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|last=Jervis|first=Robert|date=December 28, 2016|title=Thomas C. Schelling: A Reminiscence|url=https://warontherocks.com/2016/12/thomas-c-schelling-a-reminiscence/|access-date=December 10, 2021|website=War on the Rocks|language=en-US}}

In 1969 and 1971, Schelling published widely cited articles dealing with racial dynamics and what he termed "a general theory of tipping."Thomas C. Schelling (1969) "Models of segregation," American Economic Review, 1969, 59(2), [http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic185351.files/shelling1.pdf 488–493].
   _____ (1971). "Dynamic Models of Segregation," Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 1(2), pp. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140801170215/http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Papers/Schelling_Seg_Models.pdf 143–186]. In those papers, he showed that a preference that one's neighbors be of the same color, or even a preference for a mixture "up to some limit," can lead to total segregation. He thus argued that motives, malicious or not, were indistinguishable as to explaining the phenomenon of complete local separation of distinct groups. He used coins on graph paper to demonstrate his theory by placing pennies and dimes in different patterns on the "board" and then moving them one by one if they were in an "unhappy" situation.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

Schelling's dynamics has been cited as a way of explaining variations that are found in what are regarded as meaningful differences{{spaced ndash}}gender, age, race, ethnicity, language, sexual preference, and religion. A cycle of such change, once it has begun, may have a self-sustaining momentum. Schelling's 1978 book Micromotives and Macrobehavior expanded on and generalized those themesThomas C. Schelling (1978) Micromotives and Macrobehavior, Norton. [http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-32946-9/ Description], [https://books.google.com/books?id=DenWKRgqzWMC&pg=PA1= preview].{{cite journal|last1=Schelling|first1=Thomas C|journal=Handbook of Computational Economics|date=2006|publisher=Elsevier|pages=1639–1644|title=Some Fun, Thirty-Five Years Ago|volume=2|doi=10.1016/S1574-0021(05)02037-X|isbn=978-0444512536}} and is often cited in the literature of agent-based computational economics.

Schelling was involved in the global warming debate since chairing a commission for President Jimmy Carter in 1980. He believed climate change poses a serious threat to developing nations, but that the threat to the United States was exaggerated. He wrote that,

Today, little of our gross domestic product is produced outdoors, and therefore, little is susceptible to climate. Agriculture and forestry are less than 3 percent of total output, and little else is much affected. Even if agricultural productivity declined by a third over the next half-century, the per capita GNP we might have achieved by 2050 we would still achieve in 2051. Considering that agricultural productivity in most parts of the world continues to improve (and that many crops may benefit directly from enhanced photosynthesis due to increased carbon dioxide), it is not at all certain that the net impact on agriculture will be negative or much noticed in the developed world.{{cite book|author1=Schelling, Thomas C.|editor1-last=Henderson|editor1-first=David R.|title=Concise Encyclopedia of Economics|date=2007|publisher=Library of Economics and Liberty|edition=1st|chapter-url=http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/GreenhouseEffect.html|access-date=7 December 2017|chapter=Greenhouse Effect}}

{{further |Effects of climate change on agriculture}}

Drawing on his experience with the Marshall Plan after World War II, he argued that addressing global warming is a bargaining problem: if the world were able to reduce emissions, poor countries would receive most of the benefits, but rich countries would bear most of the costs.

Stanley Kubrick read an article Schelling wrote that included a description of the Peter George novel Red Alert, and conversations between Kubrick, Schelling, and George eventually led to the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.Thomas C. Schelling, 2006 prologue to 'Meteors, Mischief, and War', in Strategies of commitment and other essays, Harvard University Press, 2006.

Schelling is also cited for the first known use of the phrase collateral damage in his May 1961 article Dispersal, Deterrence, and Damage.{{cite journal|title=INFORMS PubsOnline|journal=Operations Research|volume=9|issue=3|pages=363–370|doi=10.1287/opre.9.3.363|year=1961|last1=Schelling|first1=T. C.}}

In his book Choice and Consequence,{{Cite book|last=Schelling, Thomas C., 1921–2016.|title=Choice and consequence|date=1984|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=0674127706|location=Cambridge, Mass.|oclc=9893879}} he explored various topics such as nuclear terrorism, blackmail, daydreaming, and euthanasia, from a behavioral economics point of view.

• Brinkmanship
• Egonomics
• Focal point (game theory) (Schelling point)
• Hobbesian trap (Schelling's dilemma)
• Internality
• Precommitment
• Strategic realism
• Vicarious problem-solving

{{Reflist|30em}}

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• {{Nobelprize|name=Thomas C. Schelling}} including the Nobel Lecture on December 8, 2005 An Astonishing Sixty Years: The Legacy of Hiroshima
• [https://ideas.repec.org/e/psc152.html IDEAS/RePEc]
• {{C-SPAN|18583}}
• {{cite encyclopedia |last1=Schelling |first1=Thomas C. |editor=David R. Henderson |editor-link=David R. Henderson |encyclopedia=Concise Encyclopedia of Economics |title=Greenhouse Effect |url=https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/GreenhouseEffect.html |year=2002 |edition=1st |publisher=Library of Economics and Liberty |access-date=2016-03-08}} {{OCLC|317650570|50016270|163149563}}
• [http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_5293F77426B84C68A360BD6283ACF4FC "War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; At the Brink"] an interview with Thomas Schelling, 1986.
• [https://necsi.edu/faculty/schellingpublications.pdf Official list of Schelling's publications at New England Complex Systems Institute website] (PDF)
• {{cite web|title=Thomas Schelling|url=https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=au%3A%22Thomas+Schelling%22+&acc=off&wc=on&fc=off&group=none|publisher=JSTOR}}

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{{s-bef | before = Finn E. Kydland | before2 = Edward C. Prescott}}

{{s-ttl | before | title = Laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics | years = 2005 | alongside = Robert Aumann}}

{{s-aft | after = Edmund Phelps}}

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{{Nobel laureates in economics 2001–2025}}

{{2005 Nobel Prize winners}}

{{Presidents of the American Economic Association}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Schelling, Thomas}}

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