Academic Biographical Information

Nitzan is listed in Blaug and Vane: Who is Who in Economics, 2002, 4th ed., Elgar. He made significant scientific contribution to several fields in Economics. In particular, to: collective decision making under uncertainty; political economy; social choice; public economics; contest theory and voting theory. This contribution is contained in more than 140 papers and three books. Shmuel Nitzan holds BA, MA and PhD (1976) in Economics from the Hebrew University where he started his academic career moving to Bar Ilan University in 1984. He served as the Chair of the Economics Department during 1990-1991 and since 2006 he is the incumbent of Sir Issac Wolfson Chair in Economics. He was the president of the Israeli Economic Association during 2015-2016 and currently a member of the Promotions Committee of the Council for Higher Education and a member of the Azrieli Fellows Selection Committee in the Social Sciences.

Public Economics, Group Decision Making, Economics and Politics, Social and Individual Choice

Research Interests

• Political Economiy (Endogenous public policy, Contest theory)
• Voting Theory
• Collective Decision Making
• Social Choice
• Foundations of Individual Choice (Bounded rationality)
• Public Economics

Research in Progress

Political Economy  

• The advantage of dual discrimination in lottery contest games
• Think twice before attacking: Effort, restraint and sanctions in war conflicts The optimal mode of funding in contestsInevitable contests in lawsuits
• Inevitable contests in lawsuits
• Strategic contest design with multiple objectives
• The optimal mode of funding in contests

Social Choice

• The advantage of approval voting in balancing democracy
• Robust voting under uncertainty
• Progressive scoring rules