J.-F. Mertens (1946-2012): From repeated games to cost-benefit analysis.

Summary The article shows how Jean-François Mertens contributed to the development of game theory and microeconomics as we know it today. Over the course of about eighty papers, the topics Mertens covered range from the formulation of Bayesian decision making in games with incomplete information to the foundations of "cost-benefit" analysis of long-run economic policies and include, among others, the selection of Nash equilibria in non-cooperative games, the existence of solutions for stochastic games, and the extension of Shapley's value in cooperative games with infinitely many negligible agents.