In this episode we are talking to Anouar El Haji, behavioral economist and the founder & CEO of Veylinx. With him, we explore how game theory can help to identify how customers truly value new products and services. We touch on why it is crucial for companies to obtain reliable insights before making major investment decisions and why so many companies struggle with this. The standard practice of conducting market research surveys is ineffective because participants don’t have skin in the game. But by taking a different approach using game theory, participants can be incentivized to reveal their true interest in services and products that might not even exist yet.

Anouar El Haji is the founder and CEO of Veylinx (veylinx.com). Before founding his company Anouar completed his PhD at the University of Amsterdam applying his knowledge in game theory and behavioural economics to the field of Marketing.

In this episode we are talking to Robert Idel, economist and expert in the energy sector. With him, we explore the effects of zero prices and how a market design approach can help tackle the challenging properties of the energy sector with limited storage capacities and lack of incentives to invest. Ironically, after recording this episode, the fragility and flaws in the current energy market that Robert describes became drastically apparent, when a winter storm led to long lasting and widespread power outages (find the corresponding article under https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/winterization-and-texas-blackout-fail-prepare-prepare-fail/).

Robert Idel is an expert on the design of electricity markets and more generally regulation of the power sector. Robert is currently pursuing his PhD at the Baker Institute's Center for Energy Studies in Texas. https://www.bakerinstitute.org/experts/robert-idel/

In this episode, Christina Gravert shares her personal experience from using online dating apps and how she applied game theoretic principles to maximise her chances for finding the perfect match.

It turns out that the use of dating apps like tinder can be modelled as a game, leading to useful insights for your best “swiping strategy”. We also discuss the link between dating apps and game theoretic concepts like “cheap talk” or the “optimal stopping” problem.

Christina Gravert is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen and the cofounder of Impactually, a behavioral science consultancy. Her research is field is behavioural economics with focus on environmental sustainability, health and charitable giving.

If you want to know more about her academic work, you can check out her homepage.

Our interview with Christina is based on her article at behavioralscientist.org, which also contains some interesting links on related articles.

In this episode we are talking with Jacob Larsen, expert on digital Procurement, about the nuts and bolts of e-auctions and why companies are still struggling to realize their full potential. We discuss the key ingredients needed for a successful e-auction, common misconceptions surrounding the topic and how to avoid looming pitfalls when first getting started with e-auctions. Jacob Larsen is an expert on Procurement in the digital age and author of the book "A Practical Guide to E-Auctions for Procurement". Currently the Head of Digital Procurement at Maersk, a danish integrated shipping company, the largest of its kind, Jacob knows the practical side of e-auctions like the back of his hand and summarized this knowledge together with the theory behind it in his book.

If you want to discuss how the concepts introduced in Jacob’s book can help your organization to increase the use of e-auctions, you are welcome to reach out to him via LinkedIn or email ([email protected]). You can also find the book e.g. on Amazon 

In this episode we are talking to Nafa Ben Haddej, behavioural scientist, about his latest insights on the value of game theory in both individual and group decision making in professional environments. Together we explore how setting the right incentives can reduce (often unconscious) cognitive biases in corporate decision dynamics and promote better customer outcomes.

Nafa Ben Haddej is a behavioural scientist who has devoted his professional life to understanding human interactions within companies and across their interactions with their customers. After graduating in Behavioural and Economic Science from The University of Warwick, Nafa took different behavioural science roles spanning both the private and public sectors and is currently applying his passion for behavioural science at NatWest Group, working in behavioural risk audit.

In 2020, the Nobel prize for economics was awarded to Robert Wilson and Paul Milgrom for their contributions to complex auction formats.

In this episode of Game Changer, Stephan Knapek, Managing Partner at TWS Partners, talks about frequency auctions as a practical application of such complex auction formats.

He explains why the state uses auctions to allocate frequency bands to telecom providers, and how these auctions are structured.

He also gives insights to the strategies of the bidders, and shows how some of them exploit flaws and loopholes in the auction ruleset in order to send signals to their competitors.

If you want to read more on this topic – and if you are fluent in German – you can check out Stephan’s articles in the German newspaper Handelsblatt, where he commented on the developments of the German 5G frequency auction in 2019: https://www.tws-partners.com/about-us/media/press-news/handelsblatt-5g-auction-in-germany/

Ratings, reviews, stars and points – we all strongly rely on online reviews when we shop online. But can we really trust them? And is there something we can do to make them more reliable?

The research of Paolo Turrini, associate professor at the university of Warwick, is focussed on mechanism design of social networks. In this episode, he explains why ratings are so important in online markets, how they are often manipulated, and how clever game theoretic considerations can make them more trustworthy.

In the interview, Paolo mentions the spoof restaurant “the shed at Dulwich”, which made to the top of the TripAdvisor list despite being non-existent. You can check out their homepage here: https://www.theshedatdulwich.com/menu

You can find more on Paolo’ research on his homepage: https://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~pturrini/

In this episode Christian Paul, principal at TWS Partners, explains why many companies are struggling to reach their targets in reducing carbon gas emissions.

He argues that this challenge is fundamentally connected to how companies set their internal targets and how the mechanisms are designed to reach these targets.

Here, game theory can create incentive structures to effectively reduce carbon emissions – and more importantly - internally identify opportunities to reduce these emissions at the lowest internal costs.

Christian mentions the annual letter from Larry Fink, CEO of the investment company Blackrock (you can find the letter here: https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter). We were talking to Christian last year, so he is referring to Larry Fink’s letter from January 2020

We discuss with researcher Tobias Riehm which economic reasons cause long waiting lists for parents to find daycare centres for their children in Germany. We find that knowledge from game theory can help to develop a significantly smoother allocation which can help all: children, parents and the daycare centres.

We discuss with TWS Partners’ CEO Marcus Schreiber which economic reasons led to the impressively short development time for a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. Marcus describes that risk mitigation and clever incentive structures set by the governments significantly contributed to this success story. This can be seen as a prime example for market design, a subfield of game theory. For our German listeners: You can read more on this topic in Marc’s column in the Handelsblatt (https://www.handelsblatt.com/meinung/kolumnen/expertenrat/schreiber/expertenrat-marcus-schreiber-gut-dass-staaten-die-impfstoffentwicklung-nicht-allein-dem-markt-ueberlassen/26663870.html)