Teaching

Advanced Microeconomics: Game Theory

Master in Economics (ENSAE, HEC Paris and IP Paris) and Master in Optimization (University Paris-Saclay and IP Paris).

This course studies game-theoretic models of information design and strategic communication. We analyze how information provision influences agents' beliefs and behavior in strategic environments and study the incentives of privately informed agents to truthfully and voluntarily disclose information to other agents, with and without a mediator.

1. Information Design and Bayesian Persuasion: Belief-Based Approach

• Statistical experiments 

• Splitting lemma

• Concavification

• Examples

• Public persuasion in games

• Persuasion of an agent with belief-dependent (“psychological”) preferences

2. Information Design: Bayes-Correlated Equilibrium and Private Persuasion

• Contracts and correlated Strategies

• Correlated equilibrium, canonical representation 

• Coarse correlated equilibrium

• Bayes-correlated equilibrium 

• Example: Persuasion of a committee

3. Cheap talk

• Examples

• Geometric characterization of equilibrium payoffs 

• Transparent motives and connections to Bayesian persuasion 

• Mediated communication equilibrium

Behavioral Analysis of Strategic Interactions 

M1 & EXCHANGE, HEC Paris.

This course aims to enhance traditional economic analysis by offering a more realistic insight into human behavior in strategic decision problems, thereby trying to provide better advice, comprehension, predictions, and policy recommendations across various simplified strategic, social, and economic contexts. By exploring key concepts and applications of behavioral game theory, we compare theoretical predictions with empirical evidence obtained from laboratory and field experiments in decision sciences, economics, and psychology. In cases where theoretical predictions of decisions diverge from empirical findings, we introduce behavioral or bounded rationality models to elucidate the data and bridge the theory-practice gap.

The course surveys classic and contemporary developments in behavioral and experimental game theory, focusing on a variety of specialized topics. These topics encompass static and dynamic interactions, as well as scenarios of complete and incomplete information. Examples include examining bargaining and trust dynamics, public goods, cooperation, coordination challenges within teams, gift exchanges, herd behavior, auctions and the phenomenon of the winner's curse, signaling, introspection and depth of reasoning in market competition, randomization and bluffing strategies, risk dominance versus Pareto dominance, deception and communication lies, and more.

Standard classroom experiments will be conducted and analyzed to deepen understanding. While the course covers the methodology and application of experimental economics, it is not exclusively focused on experimental methods, nor does it delve into statistical techniques for experimental data analysis.

Our exploration will enrich standard economic and game-theoretical models by integrating considerations such as other-regarding preferences (altruism, reciprocity, inequality aversion, homo moralis), overconfidence, psychological preferences, and guilt-aversion. We'll also examine solution concepts grounded in bounded cognitive or instrumental rationality (such as quantal response equilibrium, level-k reasoning, cursed equilibrium, and analogy-based expectations), allowing us to understand economic phenomena sometimes viewed as paradoxical in the standard paradigm.