David M. Kreps

Adams Distinguished Professor of Management

Professor of Economics (by courtesy), School of Humanities and Sciences

Coulter Family Faculty Fellow for 2013-14

Academic Areas: Economics

David Kreps is an economic theorist of international reputation whose path-breaking work concerns dynamic choice behavior and economic contexts in which dynamic choices are key. He has contributed to the literatures of axiomatic choice theory, financial markets, dynamic games, bounded rationality, and human resource management.

Bio

David Kreps joined the faculty of the Graduate School of Business in 1975, after completing a PhD in Operations Research in the Stanford School of Engineering. He has been a full professor since 1980, and today is the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Economics. From 2000 to 2009, he served as Senior Associate Dean.

Professor Kreps has been recognized for his research as a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and with an honorary doctorate from Universite Paris IX. In 1989, he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal by the American Economic Association. In 2007, he received the CME Group/MSRI Prize in Innovative Quantitative Applications. In 2010 he was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. His 1989 Clarendon Lectures, Game Theory and Economic Modelling, have been translated into at least eight languages.

Professor Kreps has taught MBA and doctoral level courses in decision theory, microeconomics, statistics, operations, competitive strategy, game theory, and human resource management. He is the author or coauthor of four textbooks. In 1991, he was awarded the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award. In 2010 he was awarded the Robert T. Davis Faculty Award for his service to the GSB.

Away from work, Professor Kreps enjoys cooking and coaching youth sports. His three children think he has a lame sense of humor, of which this sentence is probably a good example.

Academic Degrees

AB, Dartmouth College, 1972; MA and PhD, Stanford University, 1975.

Professional Experience

Stanford University Graduate School of Business: Assistant Professor, 1975-78; Associate Professor, 1978-80; Full Professor, 1980-present; Senior Associate Dean, 2000-2009. Tel-Aviv Univ., Berglas School of Economics, Sackler Fellow, 1991-2006. Research Officer, Dept. of Applied Economics, Cambridge Univ., 1978-79. Fellow Commoner, Churchill College, 1978-79. Visiting Professor: Cowles Foundation, Yale Univ., 1982; Dept. of Economics, Harvard Univ., 1983-84; Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University, 1985; Universite Paris IX, 1986; Sackler Institute for Advanced Studies and Dept. of Economics, Tel-Aviv Univ., 1989-90; St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, 1990; Bocconi Univ., Milan, 1992. Co-Editor, Econometrica, 1984-88. Program Co-Chair, Seventh World Congress of the Econometric Society, 1995.

Selected Publications

  • Microeconomic Foundations I: Choice and Competitive Markets: Princeton University Press, 2013
  • Microeconomics for Managers : W.W. Norton, 2004
  • Strategic Human Resources: Frameworks for General Managers, with James Baron: Wiley, 1999
  • A Course in Microeconomic Theory: Princeton University Press, 1990
  • Game Theory and Economic Modelling: Oxford University Press, 1990
  • Notes on the Theory of Choice: Westview Press, 1988

Working Papers

  • 2117: Rules With Discretion and Local Information
  • 892: Contributions to The New Palgrave
  • 865: Structural Consistency, Consistency and Sequential Rationality
  • 882: On the Robustness of Equilibrium Refinements
  • 843: Reputation and Multiple Opponents
  • 734: Price Destabilizing Speculation
  • 758: Signalling Games and Stable Equilibria
  • 660: Cournot Pre-Commitment and Bertand Competition Yield Cournot Outcomes
  • 616: Rational Learning and Rational Expectations
  • 603: Rational Cooperation in the Finitely-Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma
  • 551: On The Chain-Store Paradox and Predation: Reputation for Toughness
  • 584: Sequential Equilibria
  • 495: Arbitrage And Equilibrium In Economies With Infinitely Many Commodities
  • 494: On Sophisticated Choice Of Opportunity Sets
  • 496: Multiperiod Securities and the Efficient Allocation of Risk: A Comment on the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model
  • 499: Three Essays on Capital Markets
  • 419: A Representation Theorem for "Preference for Flexibility"
  • 444: Martingales and the Valuation of Redundant Assets
  • 459: Temporal von Neumann-Morgenstern and Induced Preferences
  • 364: Sequential Decision Problems With Expected Utility Criteria. III: Upper And Lower Transience
  • 322: Dynamic Choice Theory and Dynamic Programming
  • 321: Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty and Dynamic Choice Theory
  • 267: Markov Decision Problems II: Summarized Utility, Memorless Strategies, Stationarity
  • 266: Markov Decision Problems with Expected Utility Criteria, I: Basic Notions and Essentially Positive, Essentially Negative and Convergent Utility
  • 260: On the Optimality of Structured Policies in Countable Stage Decision Processes, II: Positive and Negative Problems
  • 234: Stock Price Consistency in a Market with Heterogeneous Investors

Awards and Honors

  • Robert T. Davis Faculty Award, 2010, Graduate School of Business, Stanford
  • Distinguished Fellow, 2010, American Economic Association
  • MSRI Prize in Innovative Quantitative Applications, 2007, CME Group
  • Doctorate Honoris Causa, 2001, Université Paris IX
  • Distinguished Teaching Award, MBA, 1991, Graduate School of Business, Stanford
  • John Bates Clark Medal, 1989, American Economic Association

Courses Taught

Centers/Programs

Affiliations

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