In this episode, we discuss with Paul Papayoanou his real life experience as a consultant applying Game Theory. Paul has worked on over 150 engagements using his expertise. In our discussion we especially focus on Paul’s experience in consulting bidders participating in auctions. Paul shares how he prepares his clients when they enter an auction and what makes a good bidding strategy.

Paul Papayoanou is a consultant for all things Game Theory and author of the book “Game Theory for Business: A Primer in Strategic Gaming“. He has worked as a professor at the University of California San Diego and at Harvard University, and currently is a Senior Advisor with Decision Frameworks, a boutique consultancy based in Houston, Texas that serves clients worldwide.

To celebrate 50 episodes of Game Changer, we take a look behind the scenes. The hosts Simon and Florian take the role of interviewees and answer Miriam’s questions on their motivation and goals for the game changer podcast and how the episodes are prepared and recorded.

We would like to thank all our listeners for sticking with us for 50 episodes and we are looking forward to the next 50 episodes and interesting insights into applications of Game Theory in business and everyday life!

In this episode, we focus on ‘decision theory’ and discuss with Shachar its connection to Game Theory. Shachar shares the three key trade-offs relevant for taking a decision.

We also discuss the ‘dictator game’ and how Shachar applied a modified version of the dictator game to study preferences of decision makers in real life.

Shachar Kariv is Benjamin N. Ward Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. His current research interests are focused on economic/decision theory and on social networks, social learning, personal and social preferences.

In this episode we talk to Ben Lyttleton about a particular topic in football: how to score the perfect penalty. Ben is an expert on penalties and has gathered a lot of insights on the ‘perfect penalty’ in his book Twelve Yards: The Art & Psychology of the Perfect Penalty. Ben shares that penalties are much more complex than initial Game Theory models would suggest. For a full understanding of penalties gathering the right data and understanding the psychology of the penalties are both critical elements. During our discussion Ben shares many anecdotes from his work with football clubs and teams.

Ben Lyttleton is a British football journalist and author of news articles and books. Our discussion is based on Ben’s book “Twelve Yards: The Art & Psychology of the Perfect Penalty”.

In this episode, Karolin Kirschenmann explains why this year’s Nobel Prize in economics was given to Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig.
We discuss their research on the role of banks in the economy and the models developed by the researchers. We deep-dive into the modelling of bank-runs and their relationship to Game Theory.

Karolin Kirschenmann is deputy head of ZEW’s Research Unit “Pensions and Sustainable Financial Markets”. Her research focuses on the areas of banking and (global) financial intermediation.

© Anna Logue Fotografie