詹姆斯•莫里斯（James A.Mirrlees， 1936-）

激励理论的奠基者，在信息经济学理论领域做出了重大贡献，1996年诺贝尔经济学奖获奖者。

1936年生于苏格兰的明尼加夫，与亚当•斯密是同乡 1957年获得爱丁堡大学数学硕士学位 1963年获剑桥大学经济学博士学位 1963--968年，莫里斯任剑桥大学经济学助理讲师、讲师、剑桥大学三一学院研究员，此期间曾任卡拉奇巴基斯坦经济开发研究所顾问。 1969年，他年被正式聘为牛津大学教授 1969年--1996年莫里斯教授一直从教于牛津，任该校埃奇沃思讲座经济学教授，Nuffield学院院士。 1968、1970、1976年出任麻处理工学院经济系客座教授。 1976--1978年任英国财政部政策最优化委员会成员。 1980年出任国际经济计量学会副会长 1982年荣任国际经济计量学会会长，并被当选为美国经济学会的外籍会员。他还曾担任过皇家经济学会会长，是英国科学院院士，美国艺术与科学院院士，并担任过几个重要学术杂志的编辑工作。 1994年，由于夫人去世，莫里斯教授为换个环境于1995年5月转到剑桥大学任教。

莫里斯在经济增长与发展等方面也成就非凡，曾与斯特恩（Stern）合编《经济增长模型》一书，与利特尔（Little）合著《发展中国家的项目签订和计划》一书，并于1975年发表《关于利用消费和生产率之间关系的欠发达经济的纯理论》一文，对经济政策、尤其是增长理论进行了功利主义分析，探讨了不确定性对适度增长的影响、非再生资源理论、不可分割的增长理论、以及耐用品的不可替代性定理等。在发展经济不领域，莫里斯提出了成本收益分析方法，建立了低收入经济的发展模型，研究了国际援助政策的效用与结果。1998年莫里斯曾访问中国。

Sir James Alexander Mirrlees FRSE FBA (born 5 July 1936) is a Scottish economist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was knighted in 1998. Born in Minnigaff, Wigtownshire, Mirrlees was educated at the University of Edinburgh and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a very active student debater. One contemporary, Quentin Skinner has suggested that Mirrlees was a member of the Cambridge Apostles along with fellow Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen during this period. Between 1968 and 1976, Mirrlees was a visiting professor at MIT three times. He taught at both Oxford University (1969–1995) and University of Cambridge (1963- and 1995-).

During his time at Oxford he published papers on economic models for which he would eventually be awarded his Nobel Prize. They centred on situations in which economic information is asymmetrical or incomplete, determining the extent to which they should affect the optimal rate of saving in an economy. Among other results, they demonstrated the principles of "moral hazard" and "optimal income taxation" discussed in the books of William Vickrey. The methodology has since become the standard in the field.

Mirrlees and Vickrey shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Economics "for their fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information".
Mirrlees is also co-creator, with MIT Professor Peter A. Diamond of the Diamond-Mirrlees Efficiency Theorem, developed in 1971.

Mirrlees is emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He spends several months a year at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is currently the Distinguished Professor-at-Large of The Chinese University of Hong Kong as well as University of Macau. In 2009, he was appointed Master of the Morningside College of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, along with the biologist Samuel Sun Sai-ming.
Mirrlees is a member of Scotland's Council of Economic Advisers. He also led the The Mirrlees Review, a review of the UK tax system by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.