“Game of theory” has played a fundamental role in the global economy and has changed the neoclassical economic ideal, focusing on imperfect competition among operators.
Economists moved forward, trying to deliver innovative theories to adapt in the global economy, still conscious that Game of Theory was an excellent result, but still not optimal; governments sometimes have difficulties to collect all the information necessary to provide effective regulations and institutions. This is the right point in which my leader, Eric Maskin, collaborating with two famous economists: Leo Hurwicz and Roger Myerson has implemented the “mechanism design theory”, evolutionist theory that has had a high impact on the current policy-making.
Before moving inside the main leader traits showed by Eric Maskin, it is useful to have a look at his background. Eric Maskin was born in New York City in 1950 and grew up in the New Jersey area. During his high-school studies, as also mentioned in his biography (1), Maskin has been lucky to find very dedicated lecturers that helped him to find out his passion for the mathematics studies, cultivated during the following years becoming a major in math at the Harvard University.
Almost accidentally, during his studies in the best worldwide university, Maskin enrolled into an economic subject called “information economics”, taught by the professor Kenneth Arrow, later his PhD advisor. This is the moment in which Maskin realised the importance of maths knowledge, being an accurate and rigorous subject, and its potential influence that can have in the external environment, combining and addressing real problems (2).
Eric Maskin, during the years, has had the opportunity to work in excellent universities such as Harvard, MIT and Cambridge, collaborating with a bright mind and great economists. In the 1980s, during his stay in the UK, Maskin started to work on the mechanic design theory with Hurwicz, but just after twenty, they have decided it was the right time to publish it. Good timing and decision, celebrated with the award of the Nobel prize in 2007.
The action logic of Eric Maskin is an expert. Focusing on his main leadership traits, he has demonstrated during his career strong expertise and personal experience in his fields. He has been the co-publisher of revolutionary theory, manifesting his attitude of being a perfectionist. Muskin is an excellent example of a person interested to steadily improve; he has contributed in the branch of the Game of Theory implementing it with the mechanism design theory, also demonstrating a watertight thinking. Also, he had applied the theory using hard data and logic, enhancing public consensus and reaffirming his strong expert action logic (3).
It is beneficial to get some insight about the “mechanism design theory” to evaluate some other aspects of Eric Maskin. A compound of engineering, economics behaviour and game theory has been adopted by the co-publishers, formulating an innovative theory in which organization’s leaders focus on the desired results and then, taking into people within the organisation, they start to design what are the optimal game-like rules necessary to reach the outcome.
Going through several articles and publication released by Eric Maskin during the years, an article took my attention, released last year by McKinsey Quarterly, in which both Eric Maskin and Eyal Winter (Economics professor) have answered to different questions about leadership, decision making and the role emotions play in both (4).
In a nutshell, Eric Maskin has implemented the role leaders have in the organisation. A useful example, if a CEO needs to undertake a decision helpful to motivate his employees, even if it is not updated with critical information, the usage of emotions such as empathy and observing accurately what employees do and react after taking a decision, delineating a correlation between outcomes and efforts.
Having analysed the “key logic” of Eric Maskin, it is time now to understand how his key characteristics have contributed to their role as a leader.
The mechanism design theory cannot be used just in mathematics and economics areas; it can have several applications towards politics, social and finance fields.
According to Gobbard, Director of the Institute for Advanced Study, the impact this research has on different areas such as economic and politic science has been enormous, demonstrating the strong influence it has had, and it will have for several years (5).
The Directors Roundtable, a civic group that organise worldwide meeting and interview with advisors and note Director, has interviewed with Eric Maskin. I have been impressed from a particular question, in which they asked him what the reason behind his choice to work on the mechanism design theory (6) is. Most of the economies work on the “predictive” part of the Economics, looking at existing data and economic institutions to see where outcomes end up. Maskin decided to work on the reverse engineering of the economics, an area that worth 10% in which studies start from the result, and the aim is to reverse the direction, working backwards and making sure the result will be beneficial for the institutions, mechanisms.
I decided to mention this part of the interview because I found it an excellent example of his leadership position in the economics.
According to Kotter, a difference between management and leadership consists in the capacity for leaders to copy making some changes, he delivered a new vision, inspiring his ideal in different fields such as politics, social equality and industrial organisation. Also, moving people require inspiration, most of the time through basic needs, values and emotions (7).
Last but not least, Eric Muskin during his career has been president of the Econometric Society, an honorary fellow in both US and Britain Academy of Arts and Sciences (8). He has also inspired many famous economists such as Abhijit Banerjee, Mathias Dewatripont. They have been his student and co-authors in different publications, emphasising his personal and achievement traits and characteristics of being a leader.