Game Theory 101: Game Theory Made Easy
A central lesson that game theory and institutional design teach us is that actors play to the rules that the institution creates, not the behaviors that the institution intends to elicit. Thus, you have think through the perverse incentives that an institution might create. Contract incentives in sports seem to be one of the worst Continue reading "Fun with Institutional Design: Seattle Seahawks…
[The following is a lightly-edited and annotated transcript of the above video.] This primary season is a rare time that results from game theory are receiving mainstream media attention. As such, it is worth a moment to talk about how the median voter theorem and turnout are affecting the battle between Bernie Sanders and Joe Continue reading "Explainer: The Median Voter Theorem, Turnout, and the…
In my estimation, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the greatest video game of all time. There are a lot of reasons I think this is true. But, for now, I want to focus on the reason applicable to this website: game theory. For the narrow set of readers familiar with both Continue reading "Focal Points in Breath of the Wild"
Suppose you are a pokémon trainer, and a fellow trainer approaches you with the following proposition: In any real life scenario, this should be a hard pass. But the situation provides a teachable moment on two fronts to justify that claim. Adverse SelectionSuppose someone tells you they want to engage in a trade. What does Continue reading "Adverse Selection and Cheap Talk in Pokémon: Let s Go"
Imagine you are playing Jenga, and it is your turn. The tower looks like this: To save you some time, almost the entire tower is spent either the middle block or the two side blocks are missing from just about every level. The only exceptions are the top two rows. Jenga s rules only allow you to Continue reading "Backward Induction and Jenga"
Over the past seven days, you have either grown to love or hate executive orders. But regardless of your political perspective, Trump s actions are showcasing one of the major findings of bargaining theory: namely, that proposal power is one of the greatest sources of bargaining power. What Is Proposal Power? Put simply, proposal power is Continue reading "Bargaining Theory in Action: Donald Trump…
After rewatching The Empire Strikes Back over the weekend, it became clear that two major blunders ultimately doom the Empire. (Original trilogy spoilers below, obviously.) Boba Fett s Terrible Contract After leaving the asteroid field, the Millennium Falcon s hyperdrive fails (again). As a Star Destroyer prepares to blow it up, Han Solo turns around the Falcon Continue reading "Strategic…
On Season 1, Episode 9 of The Newsroom, Will McAvoy pitches a new structure for a potential Republican primary debate hosted by cable news channel ACN. Rather than asking questions and letting candidates speak freely, Will wants the ability to interrupt any time a candidate goes off topic or drifts away from the question. Predictably, Continue reading "Strategic Thinking on The Newsroom"
With the death of Justice Antonin Scalia over the weekend, the scramble has begun to make sense of the nomination process. Senate Republicans are (predictably) arguing that the seat should remain unfilled until after the 2017 election, presumably so a Republican president could potentially select the nominee. Senate Democrats and President Obama (predictably) feel differently. Continue reading…
I will assume that most readers are familiar with Hotelling s game/the median voter theorem game. If not, the basic idea is that two ice cream vendors are on a beach that stretches the 0-1 interval. Customers are uniformly distributed along that interval. The vendors simultaneously select a position. Customers go to the closest vendor and Continue reading "Hotelling s Game/Median Voter Theorem…