Kanye Vs. Drake: A Prisoner’s Dilemma
This year, there were two musical albums that had more anticipation, exposure, and commotion surrounding them than anything else in recent memory: legendary Chicago rapper and former presidential candidate Kanye West’s “Donda” and Toronto entertainer Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy.” The two works were set to be released over the summer and were predicted to become […]
Game Theory in Drug Price Negotiations
In the past few years, we’ve seen a substantial push from the public and our administration for lower prescription drug prices. Pressing on many of the major biotechnology companies has been the Lower Drug Costs Now Act (H.R.3), which would allow our government to set a statutory “ceiling” price on all pharmaceutical drugs. This price […]
What Game Theory Predicts and What It Fails to Predict
In the column, Kominers, the author, invites the readers to play a math game. The rule is as following: everyone submits a number between 0 and 6400 inclusive, and whoever gets closest to four-sixths of the average of all the numbers wins. Based on the reasoning provided in the article, a rational individual should never […]
Fighting, Games, and Game Theory
“Dominant strategy”, “mixed strategy”, “payoff”, et cetera are terms that are thrown around often in discussion about basic game theory, but very rarely are the examples extrapolated to a discipline that also uses these terms: video games. You’ll hear terms like “Most Efficient Tactic”, “Mix-Ups”, and “Reward” in lieu of the game theory variants, however. […]
Auction Algorithm for Distributing Ads to Customers
https://web.stanford.edu/~saberi/adwords.pdf The study above was done by a group at Stanford University on a new potential algorithm to maximize the matches that happen at online auctions for ads. The problem is defined as the Adword problem, where given a specific number of bidders, each with a specific budget for a set of query words, the […]
The (complex, under-researched) Guide Dog Matching Market
Article: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2016.00114/full This article, “An Investigation of the Complexities of Successful and Unsuccessful Guide Dog Matching and Partnerships” was written by Llyod et al. and dives into the matching process of the visually impaired with guide dogs and the reasons the dog may be returned due to a poor assignment. They argue that this matching system […]
Game Theory and Covid-19
This article was about how the game theory can help us understand how to prioritize COVID-19 vaccine rollouts in order to save the most lives. Dr. Anand and Dr. Bauch are scientists who began studying COVID-19 from a game theory based perspective, and found that the pandemic mirrored a situation similar to the famous “Prisoner’s […]
Multi-Dimensional Game Theory in Corporate Strategy
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/making-game-theory-work-for-managers In this article, McKinsey discusses how they created a game theory based model in order to help managers at the European Rail decide what to do in the face of new entrants when the European Union announced that cross-border passenger service would be open to competition in January of 2010. McKinsey helped incumbents in […]
Game Theory of Reopening Schools During COVID-19
Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01826-x During COVID-19; one of the largest topics of debates has been whether districts should restart in person schooling. Unlike colleges and universities, schools don’t have the resources to implement successful and consistent surveillance testing programs and children under the age of 12 cannot be vaccinated, creating a higher risk in schools. On […]
Game Theory for Managers in Times of Uncertainty
Game theory is not only a mathematical tool that generates a specific answer, but it is also an applicable technique for making informed managerial decisions. When facing complex, uncertain situations, Game theory can be a strategic tool for managers to access viable options and develop foreseeable outcomes. In today’s economic environment, global downturns and […]
keep looking »