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David Schmeidler

David Schmeidler was an Israeli mathematician and economic theorist, known for his work in game theory and decision theory.

1939 to 2022The nucleolus in cooperative gamesChoquet Expected UtilityMaxmin expected utilityEgalitarian equivalence in fair division

Died: 17 March 2022
Occupation: mathematician
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

David Schmeidler was born in 1939 in Kraków

Schmeidler was born in 1939 in Kraków, Poland. He spent the war years with his family in Russia and returned to Poland when the war ended. The family moved to Israel in 1949.

He served in the IDF. From 1960 to 1969 he studied mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning a BSc, MSc and PhD. Robert Aumann supervised his advanced degrees.

In 1971 he joined Tel Aviv University, where he was a professor of statistics, economics and management. From 1987 he also taught economics part time at Ohio State University. He visited universities including Louvain and Berkeley.

His work introduced the nucleolus for cooperative games and studied non-atomic games. In decision theory he proposed Choquet Expected Utility, a model that departs from the Bayesian view. With Itzhak Gilboa he developed maxmin expected utility and case-based decision theory.

He was president of the Game Theory Society from 2014 to 2016. He was married to Dalia and had 3 daughters. He died on 17 March 2022.

Milestones in David Schmeidler's life

1939
Born in Kraków, Poland.
1949
Moved with his family to Israel.
1969
Received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
1971
Joined Tel Aviv University.
1980
Became a Fellow of the Econometric Society.
1987
Joined the economics faculty of Ohio State University.
2013
Elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
2014
Became president of the Game Theory Society.
2018
Received an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.
2022
Died on 17 March.