Roger Myerson
rbmyerson.bsky.social
Roger Myerson
@rbmyerson.bsky.social

Professor at UChicago. Author of Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict (1991).

Roger Bruce Myerson is an American economist and professor at the University of Chicago. He holds the title of the David L. Pearson Distinguished Service Professor of Global Conflict Studies at The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts in the Harris School of Public Policy, the Griffin Department of Economics, and the College of the University of Chicago. Previously, he held the title The Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics. In 2007, he was the winner of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel with Leonid Hurwicz and Eric Maskin for "having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory". He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019. .. more

Economics 54%
Business 15%
Pinned
What can deter a supreme leader from violating the Constitution? Fear that a violation would shock his essential supporters from trusting and supporting him. A constitution can fail if a leader who violated its norms can still get support to retain power.
jstor.org/stable/27644...
The Autocrat's Credibility Problem and Foundations of the Constitutional State on JSTOR
Roger B. Myerson, The Autocrat's Credibility Problem and Foundations of the Constitutional State, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 102, No. 1 (Feb., 2008), pp. 125-139
jstor.org
There is zero excuse for police, in a free society, to wear a mask.

Cowards

Prism has published "Decentralized Stabilization Assistance," on general lessons from failed state-building missions.
A strong democratic system must be rooted in local politics throughout the nation. State-building missions fail when local politics is ignored.
home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson/re...
home.uchicago.edu

I only hope that Speaker Johnson can apologize for wrongly calling us a “hate America” rally. We may disagree about many things, but the patriotism of the thousands who gathered with me today should not be questioned.

Patriotic Americans are gathering peacefully on Oct 18 to affirm the democratic constitutional values on which this great country was founded. #nokings
This economist will be in the crowd with an American flag here in Chicago.
www.nokings.org?SQF_SOURCE=i...
Homepage
indivisible.org

A manifesto calling for red-state Democrats to lead in the political revival of our great country:
thehill.com/opinion/camp...
thehill.com

Reposted by Roger B. Myerson

Good for him. More of this.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...
Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Criticizes National Guard Deployment in Chicago
www.nytimes.com

Even as the President sends troops to Chicago where I live, I affirm that local Democrats in red states are also on the front line for defense of democracy in America today. They need more support from @democrats.org.
thehill.com/opinion/camp...
#DemocracyInAmerica
thehill.com

What would Texans say if the President sent Illinois Guard troops to patrol their town? The Second Amendment affirms that people's right to keep local order by locally accountable forces is necessary to the security of a free state. This right is vital for all of us.
www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...
Live Updates: Top Trump Officials Head to Illinois and Oregon
www.nytimes.com

Defending democracy is fundamentally different from winning elections when rules of democracy can be taken for granted.
In a must-read article, @jvl.bsky.social observes that "Democrats are negotiating about policy when they should be negotiating about power."
www.thebulwark.com/p/democrats-...
Here’s How Trump Loses the Shutdown
God help us but Gavin Newsom is the only Democrat who understands power.
www.thebulwark.com

The President's threats to unseat congressional representatives by endorsing primary challengers is a profound change in America. In 1913-1960 Presidents rarely endorsed primary challengers against incumbents in their own party, and half these challengers lost.
See Riker&Bast doi.org/10.1007/978-...
Presidential Action in Congressional Nominations
Commentary. In striking contrast to the progressive centralization of administration, there seems to have been very little centralization of political control. The measurement in chapter 4 (Riker and ...
doi.org

A new paper revisits results of Thomas Worrall 1990: In the long run, incentive-constrained risk-averse agents tend to be enriched with competitive credit, but impoverished with monopolistic credit. But agents prefer the insurance that a credit monopolist can offer.
home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson/re...
home.uchicago.edu

What should Democrats stand for?
Democrats should be the party that does not just march to its Leader’s command, but everywhere supports candidates who focus on their local voters' concerns and who work for practical solutions in a broad coalition.
thehill.com/opinion/camp...
thehill.com

America's Founders would have been shocked by any suggestion of a President sending troops to cities where local authorities have kept order.
If police had existed in 1791, the 2nd Amendment might have also affirmed people's right to well-regulated local policing.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/u...
Democrats Criticize Trump’s Push for National Guard in More Cities
www.nytimes.com
The second amendment guarantees the right to a militia to guard against federal tyranny. But if a president can use that force against its own state, against the wishes of that state, then it is no militia at all and a clear violation of the second amendment.
"If you want to have a coup against the constitutional order, you want to control the capital city. And if he has control of the policing in the city of Washington...Who's gonna tell him to leave the White House?"

@gtconway.bsky.social joins @jvl.bsky.social:

Netanyahu's government has vowed to eliminate Hamas but has supported no alternative leadership for the people of Gaza. This basic contradiction has prevented Israel's invasion from achieving any positive political result beyond horrific suffering and destruction.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/09/w...
‘Arab Forces’ Running Gaza? Netanyahu’s Goal Leaves Many Questions.
www.nytimes.com

As commenters noted, I tried to show here how the push for redistricting in TX puts Dems in a strategic dilemma. To find a best response, you must first see how the other side can hope to win whichever way you go.

In any case, it is right to stand clearly for democratic accountability in America.

What is the real end of midterm redistricting? New maps in red & blue states send a message that "both parties manipulate elections, so condemning election interference is hypocrisy," priming people to accept 2026 election interference with all POTUS's power on one side.
thehill.com/homenews/cam...
thehill.com

But firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because of bad news is the opposite of contributing to economic sciences.
Punishing publicly paid statisticians for finding bad news is bad for science, and in the long run it will be bad for policy-making too.
www.newsweek.com/white-house-...
White House says terrible jobs data 'must be a typo'
The White House believes unusual jobs data revisions prove the recently fired Bureau of Labor chief was manipulating statistics.
www.newsweek.com