James Mirrlees

A pioneer in optimal taxation theory, Sir James Mirlees was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1996 along with William Vickrey, for his work on information asymmetry as it relates to taxation and moral hazard problems.

After graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 1957, Professor Mirrlees was admitted to Trinity College at Cambridge University and received his PhD in Economics in 1963. From 1968 to 1995 he was Edgeworth Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Nuffield College.

From 1995 to 2003, he has served as Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge.

He has been Distinguished Professor-at-Large at CUHK since 2002. Professor Mirrlees has also held visiting professorships at MIT, UC Berkeley, Yale and Melbourne.

He was knighted in 1997.