In this episode, Bruce shows us how Game Theory can be successfully applied in the field of political science. In particular, we discuss the explanatory and predictive power of the Selectorate Theory, which analyses political systems regarding their properties as democracy or autocracy.

Bruce explains the underlying game theoretic model of this theory, how he obtains the data, and which conclusions he can draw from the results, including predictions on coups or revolutions.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is the Julius Silver professor at New York University and emeritus senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is a political scientist, specializing in policy forecasting, political economy, and international security policy. He is also the author of many books, like “The predictioneer’s game” and “The dictator’s handbook”, among others.

You can read more on the Selectorate Theory here, here and here, and develop your own predictions using the online version of the Predictioneer’s Game software.

In this episode Christoph Kuzmics explains the game theoretic concept of Common Knowledge, using fun anecdotes from his personal life. We also learn that Common Knowledge is much more than just passing information to all parties, and that in some situations, it is desirable not to establish full information.

Christoph Kuzmics is professor of microeconomics at the university of Graz, Austria. His research focusses on the development of the theory of strategic interaction and its application to the social sciences.

He also runs the Game Theory blog gametheory.life, where he shares fun anecdotes and examples of game theory from everyday life. This podcast episode is based on his blog articles “The dinner gong” and “non-secret-voting”.

This is a short announcement of Game Changer Podcast going on summer break and returning on September 13^th.
Enjoy your summer and until September – the TWS Game changer team!

This episode is all about cooperation and altruism. Erez Yoeli explains how these concepts can be modelled using game theory, and which measures can be taken to increase altruism in different situations. He also shares the success story of the company Keheala, which uses game theoretic insights to foster altruistic behaviour in the healthcare context.

Erez Yoeli is a research scientist at MIT’s Sloan School of Management where he directs the Applied Cooperation Team. He is also co-author of the book “Hidden Games: The Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior“. His research interests are in the areas of altruism, game theory and cooperation.

In this episode Alexander Teytelboym walks us through the intricacies of uniform-price auctions. While often praised for their theoretical properties, putting them into practice successfully can turn out to be quite the challenge. Alex shares with us what can be learned about auction design from observing uniform-price auctions in the fishing industry and how game theory can explain fishermen’s bids that resemble “crank handles”.

Alex Teytelboym is associate professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford. His research interests are in the areas of market design and the economics of networks including their applications to environmental economics and energy markets, among others.