October 10, 2005

Schelling points

Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann have won this year's Nobel Prize in Economics for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis."

See Adam's blog for an explanation of Schelling points, which I was to learn as a daily strategy in Spain. There, when meeting for some social event, various factors made all plans unreliable and sophisticated strategies based on shared knowledge were required just to meet up and have a beer. For example, on finding one bar shut, a thirsty traveller would spiral outwards from that bar to the nearest, and then to the next until the crowd had been found.

Their work goes well beyond such triflings and one day I might find time to understand even a little of it. For now, I cut & paste wiser words:

[Their work] was essential in developing non-cooperative game theory further and bringing it to bear on major questions in the social sciences. Approaching the subject from different angles -- Aumann from mathematics and Schelling from economics -- they both perceived that the game-theoretic perspective had the potential to reshape the analysis of human interaction. Perhaps most importantly, Schelling showed that many familiar social interactions could be viewed as non-cooperative games that involve both common and conflicting interests, and Aumann demonstrated that long-run social interaction could be comprehensively analyzed using formal non-cooperative game theory.

While on economics, Jean sends news that Jimmy Tseng is looking for a PhD candidate to work on the economic aspects of privacy. It is a fully funded position for 4 years in the Netherlands. full details.

Given political news from the lowlands, the Dutch are hell-bent on tarnishing their reputation on privacy, so well done, Jimmy and Jean.

Posted by iang at October 10, 2005 09:06 PM | TrackBack
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