Lloyd Shapley

Lloyd Shapley, a co-winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics, has died, according to multiple news sources. He was 92.

Shapley died March 12 in Arizona. No cause of death was announced.

Shapley worked as a research mathematician at the Rand Corp. from 1954 to 1981. He also worked for the corporation for a year after graduating from Harvard with a mathematics degree. His undergraduate studies were interrupted after he was drafted into the Army Air Corps in 1943. He received the Bronze Star for cracking the Soviet Union's weather code.

Shapley earned his doctorate from Princeton University in 1953. His thesis – and his eventual research work for the Rand Corp. – involved "game theory," which is defined as "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers."

Shapley and Alvin Roth shared the Nobel Prize. Shapley's contributions involved the analysis of match making in economic markets. Roth interpreted Shapley's algorithms, formulas and theories for practical applications in those markets.

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The American Economic Association praised Shapley as "one of the giants of game theory and economic theory." At the University of California at Los Angeles, where Shapley was an emeritus professor, Chancellor Gene Block agreed with that assessment.

"His work in market design laid the foundation for advances in the matching of kidney donors with transplant recipients, in college admissions procedures, and in assignment of children to public schools, Block said.

Shapley is survived by two sons.