Nobel-winning economist Thomas Schelling, who helped avert nuclear war and inspire ‘Dr Strangelove’, dies at 95

Thomas Schelling, an economist who won a Nobel Prize for using game theory to explain nuclear war strategy and was credited with helping lessen the risk of atomic Armageddon, has died, a colleague said Wednesday. He was 95.

Schelling, a longtime Harvard University professor who finished his career at the University of Maryland, died Tuesday morning at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, said Richard Zeckhauser, a Harvard colleague who knew Schelling for 58 years.

The cause was complications from a hip fracture, said his son Daniel Schelling.

Dr Schelling’s career took him from government to academia and across disciplines, including economics, foreign policy, urban planning and psychology. Along the way, he also helped on the nuclear war film Dr Strangelove, his work having inspired director Stanley Kubrick.

Trained as an economist, he came of professional age as an adviser and analyst during the Truman administration and grew fascinated by negotiation during the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. He later taught for three decades at Harvard University before retiring in 2003 from the University of Maryland.

Schelling was best known for his application and elaboration of game theory, the mathematical study of decision-making amid conflict. For policymakers engaged with the Soviets and for experts who sought to analyze the standoff, his writings - particularly the book T he Strategy of Conflict (1960) - became field guides for averting a nuclear crisis.