Seminar Talks JST 2021 - The Usefulness of Game Theory: Comments on the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economics

07 Apr, 2021

At the seminar on the Usefulness of Game Theory: Discussing the Nobel Prize in Economics organized by Journal of Asian Business and Economic Studies (JABES) - University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City (UEH), international scholars from Asian countries and around the world discussed new research directions in the ongoing post-COVID-19 period around the world.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unprecedented challenges and opportunities which affect the economic development in the future. The policies to limit the spread of COVID-19 imposed by the governmentgreatly impactn each countries' economy. Therefore, the scripts and predictions relating to the effect on the countries' economies and business must be examined after the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The conference with the theme “Economics and Business: Agendas for the Uncertain World” consisting of series of seminars relating to economics and business - JABES Seminar Talks (JST) was organizedtoo orient research in the context of global instability (such as COVID-19).

As a part of the series JST 2021, the seminar talk on with the theme "The Usefulness of Game Theory: Comments on the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economics" took place with the presence of Professor Tilman Börgers - a guest who attended with the role of a speaker. He is now teaching at Michigan University (USA), and at the same time holding the position of the Lead Editor of “Journal of Economic Theory”. Professor is the author of the book "An Introduction to the Theory of Mechanism Design” (Oxford Publishing House, published in 2015).

In 2020, Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work "Developing auction theory and founding new auction protocols".

They have developed auction theory to design new auction models for public goods and services, such as telephone waves. Auction is part of the game theory discussed by Professor Tilman Börgers during the seminar, with evidence on the electricity industry as well as the telephone wave bandwidth in the US. The electricity industry plays an important role in American industry, and to serve the public well, electricity is auctioned off in organized auctions. However, electricity auctions are not straightforward but with a mixture of choices. Auctioning is the core of the American economy, where public goods are auctioned in order for people to decide the right prices.

Professor Tilman also mentioned the Dutch auction theory, also known as descending option. This is the method of auctioning when there are many items at the same time or sequentially... The auction method is to set a price and then gradually decrease until someone accepts to buy at a new price. Milgrom and Wilson have been successful in studying option rules and how to apply options to allocate resources effectively.

In the language of modern economic theory, an auction is a game of strategy. Milgrom and his partners, on the one hand-built game theory and on the other hand constructed Mechanism Design Theory. Both of these works are applied in an auction. In the case of the German education system, Professor Tilman said, it is not worth paying a premium tuition fee for the best school. Therefore, non-monetary resource allocation mechanisms become the main research topic. However, later, game theory has replaced this mechanism, and many researchers have found the usefulness of game theory, especially the usefulness of auction in solving problems. However, up to now, there is no experiment to indicate which auction mechanism is suitable for policymakers. In addition, a method is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of auctions in practice. Not only consider auction mechanism, but we also need to learn methods to assess domestic resource allocation mechanism effectively. These are the issues that can develop empirical research for future researchers.

Some photos at the seminar:

Prof.Dr. Nguyen Trong Hoai - Editor in Chief of JABES made an opening remark and stated the reason for organizing the Seminar.

Numerous researchers and scientists around the world who participated online

The chairman of the seminar listened to the interesting presentation by Professor Tilman Börgers.

Additional information

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