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Prof. James A. Mirrlees, 1996 Nobel laureate in economics and professor of political economy at the University of Cambridge, gave a lecture entitled 'Economic Policy with Imperfect Consumers' on 23rd November 2001 in the Sino Building.
Prof. Mirrlees has made fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information. Situations where decision-makers have different information may occur in many contexts. Incomplete and asymmetrically distributed information can often lead to an informational advantage being exploited strategically. Research on the economics of information therefore focuses on how contracts and institutions can be designed to handle different incentive and control problems. This has generated substantial impact on insurance markets, credit markets, auctions, and political institutions.
Prof. Mirrlees's theory on optimal income taxes is important to the modern analysis of complex information and incentive problems, in particular where it is impossible to observe another agent's actions. He has analysed the structure of consumption taxes in a world where tax wedges give rise to social inefficiency.