Internationally renowned economist Avinash Dixit says he looks to "life itself" to find examples to help explain economic theory and game theory to his students.

Game theory studies situations in which two or more parties have agendas that might or might not coincide; according to Dixit, this increasingly has become the unified perspective for viewing most economic questions of competition and cooperation.

"For me, intellectually, the most rewarding aspect of undergraduate teaching is the opportunity to think how to simplify concepts," says Dixit, who has taught in Princeton's economics department since 1981.

To convey complicated analyses of consumer index prices, he uses the question of how much more money parents should send students when the prices of items they regularly buy go up, and he explains tricky strategies like brinkmanship in game theory using scenes from movies such as "L.A. Confidential" and "The Gods Must Be Crazy." Other real-life examples come from business and politics, and from his own interactions with friends and relatives.

Dixit, the John J. F. Sherrerd ’52 University Professor of Economics, is known for his work on game theory, microeconomic theory, international trade and growth, and development theories. His publications are read around the world in numerous languages. He is the co-author of a popular book on game theory, "Thinking Strategically," which presents ideas in a way that non-specialist readers can understand, and an introductory textbook, "Games of Strategy." Translations of "Thinking Strategically" have been on the bestseller lists in both Israel and Japan. It is also the title of a course Dixit developed at Princeton, which teaches strategic game-playing in precepts and across computer clusters.

The academic career of Dixit, who was born in Bombay, India, did not start with economics. He received a bachelor's degree from Bombay University in mathematics and physics, and another bachelor's degree in mathematics from Cambridge University.

Dixit chose to study economics by accident. He was looking for interesting new applications of mathematics, and a friend suggested reading Paul Samuelson's "Foundation of Economics" and Gérard Debreu's "Theory of Value." He was hooked, and went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study with Samuelson and to earn his Ph.D.

Dixit, who has taught at universities in the United States and the United Kingdom and has held visiting positions at the International Monetary Fund and the Russell Sage Foundation, has earned several awards for his research and teaching. In 2006, he won the Richard E. Quandt Teaching Prize for his outstanding work with undergraduates, and that same year he also was elected president of the American Economic Association.

"I have been lucky to have enticed some students to take serious interest in economics and game theory, and observed their amazing subsequent progress in academia, business and public policy," says Dixit. "Princeton is an especially wonderful place at which to teach, because the students are very smart and intellectually curious to begin with."