In this episode we talk to Cailin O’Connor about inequity in society and how it can be modeled using evolutionary game theory. She explains that few conditions like the division of groups into social categories such as gender or race suffice to lead to stable inequitable patterns which persist over time. We discuss implications when it comes to gender and the division of labour or bargaining situations and why it is so difficult to break inequitable patterns.

Cailin O’Connor is professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at UC Irvine. In her research she focusses on philosophy of biology and science, and evolutionary game theory. She is author of several books, such as “Games in the Philosophy of Biology”, “The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread” and “The Origins of Unfairness: Social Categories and Cultural Evolution”.

In this episode we discuss with Lionel Page, professor of Economics at UTS, his recent research on starting offers in bargaining. We start with talking about the classical ultimatum game and how studies generated a seemingly contradiction to classical game theory. Lionel then explains how he extended the ultimatum game to understand how the value of the initial offer in a bargaining situation affects the outcome of the negotiation.

Lionel Page is professor of Economics at University of Technology Sydney. In his research he focuses on Econometrics, Decision Theory, Sociology and Behavioral Economics. He studies the application to practical problems from areas of financial and prediction markets, education and inequality.

In this episode we chat with Nobel Prize laureate Eric Maskin about why mechanism design calls for an engineering approach and which tools are needed to design economic mechanisms. We discuss what separates a bad from a good mechanism and how this knowledge can help market designers, whether the goal is to reduce carbon emissions or sell spectrum rights.

Eric Maskin is professor of Economics and Mathematics at Harvard University. He has made countless contributions in the fields of Game Theory and Contract Theory, among others, and received the highest recognition when he won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2007 together with his fellow researchers Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson for laying the foundation for the theory of Mechanism Design.

In this episode Michael Ostrovsky walks us through the history of online advertising auctions, from their modest beginnings at Yahoo and other internet pioneers to the lucrative business models many internet giants like Google and Amazon rely on today. Even though online ad auctions are a story of incredible success Michael also gives some insights into which flaws existed in their early days and how these were overcome as time passed.

Michael Ostrovsky is the Fred H. Merrill Professor of Economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a co-founder of the company Topsort which provides auction-based advertising infrastructure for online retailers and marketplaces. Not only is he an expert in all things auction theory, but he has also experienced the rise of online auctions in person while advising various internet pioneers.