William Vickrey's Legacy: Innovative Policies for Social Concerns

William Vickrey, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1996, was a moral and brilliant man. His major contributions to economics came from his desire to advance ways to decrease waste through creative pricing. The economic areas where he had the most impact are congestion pricing, tax reform and auctions. At the end of his life the unemployment issue dominated his research. Vickrey saw macroeconomics turning increasingly from full employment to stable prices as the dominant policy goal. Vickrey was deeply concerned that economists and politicians believed that price stability was a more laudable goal than full employment.