Morgenstern was born in
Görlitz in the Prussian
Province of Silesia. His mother was rumored to be a daughter of Emperor
Frederick III. Morgenstern grew up in
Vienna, Austria, where he attended university. In 1925, he graduated from the
University of Vienna with a PhD in political science. From 1925 to 1928, he undertook a three-year fellowship financed by the
Rockefeller Foundation. After his return in 1928, he became a professor of economics at the University of Vienna, a position he held until he visited Princeton University in 1938. In 1935, Morgenstern published the article
Perfect Foresight and Economic Equilibrium, after which his colleague
Eduard Čech directed him to an article by
John von Neumann,
Zur Theorie der Gesellschaftsspiele (1928). He also worked as an outside expert for the
Economic and Financial Organization, along with
Bertil Ohlin and
Jacques Rueff, supporting the EFO's work on economic depressions in the late 1930s. During Morgenstern's visit to
Princeton University,
Adolf Hitler took over Vienna during the
Anschluss, and Morgenstern chose to remain in the United States. He became a faculty member at Princeton but gravitated toward the
Institute for Advanced Study where he met von Neumann. Together, they collaborated on writing
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, published in 1944. The work is recognized as the first book on game theory, a mathematical framework for studying strategic structures governing rational decision-making in economic, political, and military situations. In 2013, the University of Vienna relocated the Faculty of Business, Economics and Statistics and named the square Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz in his honor. The collaboration between Morgenstern and von Neumann led to new areas of investigation in both mathematics and economics, attracting widespread academic and practical interest. In 1944, Morgenstern became a United States citizen, and four years later he married Dorothy Young, with whom he had two children, Carl and Karin. In 1950, he was elected as a
Fellow of the American Statistical Association. Morgenstern remained at Princeton as a professor of economics until his retirement in 1970, after which he joined the faculty of
New York University. Morgenstern authored numerous articles and books, including
On the Accuracy of Economic Observations and
Predictability of Stock Market Prices with subsequent Nobel laureate
Clive Granger. Morgenstern died in
Princeton, New Jersey in 1977. The archive of his of published and unpublished works is held at
Duke University. In November 2012, a square in
Alsergrund, Vienna, was named "Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz"; it is the location of the Faculties of Economics and Mathematics of the
University of Vienna. In 2013, the University of Vienna awarded the Oskar Morgenstern Medal for the first time; the inaugural recipient was Nobel laureate Roger B. Myerson. Subsequent recipients include Robert F. Engle (2015), Ernst Fehr (2017), Christopher Pissarides (2019), Muriel Niederle (2021), Thomas Piketty (2023) and Phanish Puranam (2025). == Mathematica ==