Barry Nalebuff TOPICS: Economics Management Business Future Technology Strategic Planning FEE CATEGORY:* 20.0k to 25.0k TRAVELS FROM: Connecticut Video Profile Books & Videos Request This Speaker

Barry Nalebuff: Profile

Dr. Barry Nalebuff is the Milton Steinbach Professor of Economics and Management at Yale School of Management. A graduate of MIT and a Rhodes Scholar, he earned his doctorate in economics at Oxford University. Prior to appointment at Yale, Nalebuff was an assistant professor at Princeton University and a junior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Along with being a professor, he is a Forbes columnist and Marketplace commentator, serves as a director of Trader Classified Media, Bear Stearns Financial Products, and the Connecticut Citizens Fund, and is the co-founder and chairman of Honest Tea, one of Inc. Magazine's fastest growing companies in America.

Professor Nalebuff has written on a wide variety of subjects ranging from strategy to pricing, bidding to bargaining, and innovation to incentives. He is an expert on game theory and has written extensively on its application for managers. Professor Nalebuff's work on strategy focuses on the fundamental duality in business -- the conflict between cooperating to create a pie and competing to divide it up. The result is his book on business strategy, Co-opetition. His most recent book, Why Not?, focuses on providing a framework for problem solving and ingenuity. Professor Nalebuff frequently writes op-ed articles for the country's major newspapers on subjects as diverse as credit cards, the term structure of debt, political strategy, innovation, and complementors. His work on product bundling was featured in the European Union's investigation of the proposed GE-Honeywell merger.

In addition to his books, Nalebuff writes extensively on the application of game theory to business and politics. He has written dozens of academic papers, and is an associate editor of The Journal of Economic Perspectives, The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, and The Journal of Conflict Resolution. His op-ed pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, and The Washington Post.

In addition to his books, Nalebuff writes extensively on the application of game theory to business and politics. He has written dozens of academic papers, as well as the lead article in the July- August 1995 issue of the Harvard Business Review "The Right Game: Using Game Theory to Shape Strategy," written with Adam Brandenburger. One such piece in October 1991, applied game theory to politics to argue that a Clinton-Gore ticket was the Democrat's best strategy to beat Bush. Frequently quoted in magazines and newspapers on business strategy, Nalebuff was featured in a Forbes magazine cover story on Game Theory.

A consultant, as well as a scholar, Nalebuff applies Game Theory to his work with Fortune 500 clients and in antitrust litigation. He has advised American Express, Bell Atlantic, Citibank, Corning, General Re, Merck, and Procter & Gamble, among others. Nalebuff has worked with McKinsey & Co. to help bring game theory into their consulting practice and with the Federal Communications Commission in the design of the Personal Communication Spectrum Auction and then with the Bell Atlantic-Nynex-Airtouch-US West consortium as their bidding consultant. He serves as a director of Bear Stearns Financial Products and the Connecticut Citizenship Fund.

At Yale, Nalebuff teaches a wide variety of courses. At the management school, he teaches competitive (and cooperative) strategy, mergers and acquisitions, political-economic marketing and game theory and decision-making. He also teaches a course in negotiation strategy at Yale's law school and an undergraduate course on political theory in the Ethics, Politics, and Economics program. Actively involved in the Yale community, Nalebuff wrestles with budget deficits, ever-rising tuition, and faculty hiring and promotions as a member of the university budget committee and the management school's appointment committee. Prior to Yale, Nalebuff was an assistant professor at Princeton University (1985-89) and a junior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University (1982-85).

After Harvard, Nalebuff moved to Princeton University to work with Joseph Stiglitz. At Princeton, he was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, a Bicentennial Preceptorship, and three National Science Foundation awards. In his spare time, he wrote a puzzles column for the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

His interest in economics and game theory began with his undergraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1980 with degrees in Economics and Mathematics. A Rhodes Scholarship took him to Oxford University where, two years later, he received a doctorate in economics and the George Webb Medley thesis prize. The Harvard Society of Fellows brought Nalebuff back to the United States. This award, given to eight people a year, across all fields from archaeology to zoology, funds the recipients to pursue any interests for three years. ("The only requirement," he says, "was to turn up every Monday night for dinner with the other Fellows. Only now, in retrospect, do I realize the value of those three years without any teaching responsibilities.")

Nalebuff lectures and gives executive forums and training programs throughout the U.S., as well as internationally, designed to teach people how to think strategically. He began his public speaking career early when, while still in high school, he surreptitiously won Yale's sophomore oratory contest, much to the consternation of one particular Yale professor. "After that experience, a Yale degree wasn't an option, although Yale finally let me in as a professor," says Nalebuff.

An avid squash player, Nalebuff says, "One of the greatest features of MIT was that I could play Varsity squash. Alas, that might not have happened elsewhere." At MIT, he also learned to ride a unicycle. He also began playing the oriental game of "Go" at MIT, where he became head of the "Go" Club-"an honor given to the worst player." More seriously, he confides, "MIT had the world's greatest economics department and I had the great privilege to learn from such luminary professors as Robert Solow, Paul Samuelson, and Jerry Hausman." 

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