Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Discusses True Wisdom

The 2005 Nobel laureate in economics, Robert Aumann, has a wispy beard of gray trending toward white, a brown tweed sport jacket with a Hebrew University lapel pin, and a knitted yarmulke perched on the left side of his head.

He was introduced over lunch yesterday in Manhattan as a grandfather of 18, which he gently corrected to 19, along with two great grandchildren.

For a Nobel laureate he began on a humble note. "I don't know anything about the markets," he said. He said the Talmud says there are seven attributes of a wise man. He confessed to not knowing the first six, but said the seventh is, "A wise man, when he doesn't know something, he says, I don't know."

Professions of ignorance aside, Mr. Aumann proceeded to discourse for nearly two hours on spectrum auctions, game theory, traffic engineering, the sociology of American sexual practices, behavioral economics, religion, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

I ask him why Jews seem to win a surprisingly large share of Nobel prizes given their small share of the world's population. First he cautions that some of those Nobel laureates who are described as Jewish actually are not. But even discounting for that, "there's something in it," he says.

"One of the reasons may be that there is an ingrained love of learning in Jews. It's not ingrained in genetics, it's ingrained in the tradition," he said. "Study for its own sake has become a prime value, a religious commandment, like eating kosher, like keeping the sabbath."

As for reconciling science and religion, Mr. Aumann says, "I don't think there's anything to be reconciled." He says that for him religion "is an experience, like playing the piano or skiing down a steep slope."

As an economist, Mr. Aumann specializes in game theory. One insight is that people behave differently in one-shot games than in repeated games. In repeated games, individual players are more likely to cooperate or compromise or form alliances. This insight translates to the business world, where, he says, a fly-by-night operation is more likely to rip off customers than is a long-established retailer with deep roots in the community. And, he argues, it has implications for war and peace. "The desire for peace now is counterproductive," he says. "If you are willing to wait, then you may get it now. But if you want it now, then you may never get it."