Martin Shubik (1926–2018) was an American mathematical economist who specialized ingame theory, defense analysis, and thetheory of money. The latter was his main research interest and he referred to it as his "white whale". He also coined the term "mathematical institutional economics" in 1959 to describe his scholarly approach to studying the economy.^[1] He spent the majority of his career atYale University, where he was heavily involved with theCowles Foundation for Research in Economics, and launched the virtualMuseum of Money and Financial Institutions.^[2]

Outside of economics, he began studyinginclusion body myositis (IBM) after a 2003 diagnosis. He provided seed money to theYale School of Public Health for theIBM Disease Registry in 2011, a survey was conducted in 2012–2013, and he is a co-author on a 2015 paper about the initial results (along with his son-in-law Seth Richards-Shubik).^[3]

Martin Shubik was born on 24 March 1926 inNew York City, New York to Joseph and Sara Shubik (née Soloveychik) (both of whom were Jewish, but Russian and French, respectively).^[4] However, Joseph Shubik worked for a Scottish flax and linen company and the family returned to London when Martin Shubik was just three months old. He remained in England untilWorld War II, when he, Sara Shubik, and younger sisterIrene Shubik (1929–2019) were sent to join relatives in Canada, while Joseph Shubik and older brotherPhilippe Shubik (1921–2004) stayed behind. To fulfill a condition of enrollment in college in Canada during the War, Martin Shubik enlisted in theRoyal Canadian Navy and held the rank of Lieutenant before retiring in 1950.^[5]

Shubik was married to Julie Kahn (d. 2018) and had one child, Claire Louise Shubik (b. 1973). Irene Shubik became a British television producer and Philippe Shubik a cancer researcher.

Shubik earned a BA in mathematics (1947) and MA in Political Economy (1949) from theUniversity of Toronto and an AM (1951) and PhD (1953) in Economics fromPrinceton University, where his dissertation was supervised byOskar Morgenstern. His other teachers includedAlbert Tucker,John von Neumann, andJacob Viner; his roommates were futureNobel Prize winnersLloyd Shapley andJohn Nash; and his classmates included Thomas Whitin,Otto Eckstein,Gary Becker,Marvin Minsky,John McCarthy,Herbert Scarf,Ralph Gomory, Richard Karlin,Alan Hoffman, andHarlan Mills.

Shubik and Shapley used theShapley value to formulate theShapley-Shubik power index in 1954 to measure the power of players in a voting game.^[6]

Shubik's curriculum vitae lists over 20 books and 300 articles, with Shapley being his most frequent collaborator (14 articles).^[7] Nash also appears twice, including with Shapley and Mel Hausner on "So Long Sucker - A Four Person Game" about a board game that they invented.^[8]

Before fully committing to academia, Shubik spent time atGeneral Electric Company (GE) as a Consultant in Management Consultation Services from 1956 to 1960 andInternational Business Machines Corporation (IBM) as a Staff Member in theT. J. Watson Research Laboratories from 1961 to 1963. During his life, he served as a consultant and expert witness for many other companies, organizations, and government agencies (including theRAND Corporation). Later in life, he was an External Professor at theSanta Fe Institute from 1995 to 2018.^[9]

Shubik spent the majority of his career at Yale University, where he was Professor of the Economics of Organization from 1963 to 1975, then the Seymour H. Knox Professor of Mathematical Institutional Economics from 1975 until his retirement in 2007 (after which he became emeritus). He was also Director of theCowles Foundation for Research in Economics from 1973 to 1976 and a founding faculty member of theYale School of Management (originally the School of Organization and Management). He taught courses in economics, game theory, andinvestment theory and practice.^[10]

Shubik's awards included theFrederick W. Lanchester Prize (1984) forGame Theory in the Social Sciences, volume 1, the Koopman Prize (1995) with Jerome Bracken from theInstitute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), Fellow of Econometric Society (1971), Medal ofCollege de France (1978), Fellow ofAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985), Honorary Professor ofUniversity of Vienna (1978), and he was a Distinguished Fellow of theAmerican Economic Association (AEA; 2010).^[11][12]

• Mayberry, John; Nash, John; Shubik, Martin (1953). "A Comparison of Treatments of a Duopoly Situation".Econometrica.21 (1):141–154.doi:10.2307/1906952.JSTOR 1906952.S2CID 154750660.
• Shapley, Lloyd; Shubik, Martin (1971). "The Assignment Game I: The Core".International Journal of Game Theory.1 (1):111–130.doi:10.1007/BF01753437.S2CID 153971683.
• Shubik, Martin (1971). "The Dollar Auction Game: A Paradox in Noncooperative Behavior and Escalation".The Journal of Conflict Resolution.15 (1):109–111.doi:10.1177/002200277101500111.S2CID 155038630.
• Shubik, Martin (1973)."Commodity Money, Oligopoly, Credit, and Bankruptcy in a General Equilibrium Model".Economic Inquiry.11 (1):24–38.doi:10.1111/j.1465-7295.1973.tb00959.x. Retrieved2022-12-02.
• Shubik, Martin; Wilson, Charles (1977)."The Optimal Bankruptcy Rule in a Trading Economy using Fiat Money".Journal of Economics.37 (3/4):337–354.JSTOR 41797909. Retrieved2022-12-04.
• Shapley, Lloyd; Shubik, Martin (1977)."Trade using One Commodity as a Means of Payment".The Journal of Political Economy.85 (5):937–968.doi:10.1086/260616.JSTOR 1830340.S2CID 44086939. Retrieved2022-12-02.
• Shubik, Martin (1997). "Terrorism, Technology, and the Socioeconomics of Death".Comparative Strategy.16 (4):339–414.doi:10.1080/01495939708403125.

• Shubik, Martin (1959). "Edgeworth Market Games". In Tucker, William; Luce, Robert (eds.).Contributions to the Theory of Games, Volume 4. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 267–278.doi:10.1515/9781400882168-016.ISBN 9781400882168.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Shubik, Martin (1999).Political Economy, Oligopoly and Experimental Games: The Selected Essays of Martin Shubik Volume 1. Cheltenham; Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.ISBN 9781858982410.
• Shubik, Martin (1999).Money and Financial Institutions – A Game Theoretic Approach: The Selected Essays of Martin Shubik Volume Two. Cheltenham; Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.ISBN 9781840641905.
• Shubik, Martin (1999).The Theory of Money and Financial Institutions, volume 1. Cambridge: MIT Press.ISBN 9780262194273.
• Shubik, Martin (2004).The Theory of Money and Financial Institutions, volume 2. Cambridge: MIT Press.ISBN 9780262194280.
• Shubik, Martin (2011).The Theory of Money and Financial Institutions, volume 3. Cambridge: MIT Press.ISBN 9780262013208.
• Shubik, Martin; Quint, Thomas (2014).Barley, Gold or Fiat: Toward a Pure Theory of Money. New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN 9780300188158.
• Shubik, Martin; Smith, D. Eric (2016).The Guidance of an Enterprise Economy. Cambridge: MIT Press.ISBN 9780262034630.

• Remembering Martin Shubik on Padlet

• 1926 births
• 2018 deaths
• Princeton University alumni
• University of Toronto alumni
• Social scientists from New York City
• American game theorists
• Yale University faculty
• 20th-century American non-fiction writers
• 21st-century American non-fiction writers
• 20th-century American economists
• 21st-century American economists
• Fellows of the Econometric Society
• Santa Fe Institute people
• Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
• Distinguished fellows of the American Economic Association

• CS1 errors: ISBN date
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles with hCards