Game Theory & Behavioral Economics
An incentive is a factor that motivates behavior, such as the expectation of a reward or the fear of punishment. As humans, we all devise strategies (or plans of action) in response to perceived incentives. Sometimes the success of these plans depends only on our own skill or effort. More often, however, our chance to secure rewards or avoid punishments depends on our interaction with others human beings who are motivated by their own set of (possibly similar) incentives. Game theory provides the tools to analyze this interactive process of strategic thinking, and behavioral economics provides a unifying framework to understand deviations from this process.
Along with tasks of grading and attending students during office hours, I taught a weekly 3 hour recitation of econometrics and programming in R. I also had the opportunity to teach lectures about Nash equilibrium and equilibrium in mixed strategies.
