About

Yair Tauman is a leading professor in the Department of Economics at Stony Brook University and serves as the Director of the Stony Brook Center for Game Theory. His academic and research focus includes game theory, industrial organization, and strategic thinking. He has taught courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, covering topics such as game theory, microeconomics, strategic thinking, and statistics and probability. Professor Tauman has made significant contributions to the field through his research, which includes work on the value of information in strategic conflict, incentive-compatible cost-allocation schemes, and models of multiproduct price competition. His publications have appeared in reputable journals such as Mathematics of Operations Research, Econometrica, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Games and Economic Behavior. In addition to his research, he has served as an associate editor for prominent journals and has organized the Summer Game Theory Conference since 1990, demonstrating his active engagement in the academic community.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Microeconomics
• Economics
• Mathematical economics
• Industrial organization
• Mathematics
• Discrete mathematics

Selected publications

• Licensing New Technologies in Oligopolistic Markets

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Optimal patent licensing: from three to two part tariffs

  Economic Theory · 2024-06-22 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Deterrence games and the disruption of information

  International Journal of Game Theory · 2023-08-18 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Entry with two correlated signals: the case of industrial espionage and its positive competitive effects

  International Journal of Game Theory · 2021 · 10 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Economics
  • Microeconomics
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Equivalence between fixed fee and ad valorem profit royalty

  Journal of Public Economic Theory · 2021 · 17 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Microeconomics
  • Economics

  Abstract For an outside innovator with a finite number of buyers of the innovation, this paper compares two licensing schemes: (i) fixed fee, in which a licensee pays a fee to the innovator and (ii) ad valorem profit royalty, in which a licensee leaves a fraction of its profit with the innovator. We show these two schemes are equivalent in that for any number of licenses the innovator puts for sale, these two schemes give the same licensing revenue. We obtain this equivalence result in a general model with minimal structure. It is then applied in a Cournot oligopoly for an outside innovator. Finally, in a Cournot duopoly it is shown that when the innovator is one of the incumbent firms rather than an outsider, the equivalence result does not hold.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• VALUE PRESERVING WELFARE WEIGHTS FOR SOCIAL OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS

  International Economic Review · 2021-06-19

  preprintSenior author

  Abstract We propose endogenous, value preserving (VP) welfare weights as an alternative to equal weights utilitarianism. VP weights require that the contribution of an agent's endowments to social welfare is proportional to the contribution of the final allocation to his welfare. Under three axioms, the per unit contribution of a good to welfare is shown to equal the gradient of the welfare function. VP weights coincide with Negishi weights in frictionless environments but prescribe redistribution toward a good's owner when the good's social value exceeds its market value. When ability is treated as an endowment, VP weights reward ability and effort.

  PublisherDOI

• Stag Hunt with unknown outside options

  Economic Theory · 2020-06-09 · 8 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Bargaining in Patent Licensing with Inefficient Outcomes

  Review of Industrial Organization · 2020-04-16 · 3 citations

  article1st author
  PublisherDOI

• On the diffusion of competing innovations

  Mathematical Social Sciences · 2020-09-01 · 8 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Licensing of a New Product Innovation with Risk Averse Agents

  Review of Industrial Organization · 2020-11-06 · 6 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Leonard J. Mirman

  19 shared

• David Schmeidler

  17 shared

• Israël Zang

  Tel Aviv University

  17 shared

• Morton I. Kamien

  16 shared

• Richard Zeckhauser

  Harvard University Press

  16 shared

• Artyom Jelnov

  Ariel University

  15 shared

• Andriy Zapechelnyuk

  14 shared

• Debapriya Sen

  Toronto Metropolitan University

  14 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Economics

  University of California, Berkeley

  1988

• M.A., Economics

  University of California, Berkeley

  1985

• B.A., Mathematics

  Hebrew University of Jerusalem

  1982