Schelling, Thomas

Thomas Schelling is a Nobel Prize–winning economist, best known for his groundbreaking work applying game theory to questions of nuclear strategy and national security. This entry looks at the career and writings of Thomas Schelling, focusing on his views on game theory and his contributions to military strategy.

Schelling was born on April 14, 1921, in Oakland, California. He received a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1944 and completed his PhD in economics at Harvard University in 1951. In 1953, Schelling became associate professor of economics at Yale University, where he spent the next 5 years. During this period, he began working as an adjunct fellow with the RAND Corporation, and in 1958, he left Yale to spend a year at RAND as ...