Summer Career Connections at SAVY 2018: Session 5, Day 2 – Behavioral Economics and Game Theory (Rising 7th)
Already two days have flown by!
The class is really picking up steam now as we further analyzed simultaneous, complete information, discrete, finite, non-cooperative, 1 on 1 games. This morning we looked at the prisoner’s dilemma with a twist. What if people have different levels of guilt from stealing or sharing? Can we gain an edge in the game if we know what type of person we are playing against. Information availability in these games is crucial as we found out this morning.
We then moved on to learning how to analyze games that were sequential instead of instantaneous. We practiced constructing a decision tree by solving the following brain teaser. As always, parents are encouraged to test themselves. See if you can solve this game.
Four people come to a river in the night. There is a narrow bridge, but it can only hold two people at a time. They have one torch and, because it’s night, the torch has to be used when crossing the bridge. Person A can cross the bridge in 1 minute, B in 2 minutes, C in 5 minutes, and D in 8 minutes. When two people cross the bridge together, they must move at the slower person’s pace. The question is, can they all get across the bridge in 15 minutes or less?
Our first case study was today as well! We looked into a study called “A Fine is a Price.” These economists observed what happened when a fine was introduced for picking up children late from day care centers. Ask the kids what happened! (and think of how you would act if SAVY introduced this fine). Thus began our ventures into behavioral economics. This discussion varied our thinking a bit from our general notions of supply and demand this morning.
Be sure to ask the students about other games that we analyzed today. If you feel like we are using the word game in many different ways, ask your student to define what a game is for you.
Looking forward to another thought-provoking day tomorrow!
Blake
Playing Our Buy and Sell Game
