What Game Theory Tells us About Politics and Society

The concept of game theory is used by economist Alexander Wolitzky to model social dynamics, networks, and groups.

Alexander Wolitzky leans back in his workplace chair, stops briefly, and begins to define “Cycles of Dispute: An Economic Design,” a journal write-up he co-authored.

In his office chair, Alexander Wolitzky leans back, pauses, and starts to describe “Cycles of Dispute: An Economic Design,” a journal article he co-authored.

Wolitzky says, defining the paper’s thesis, “There’s an easy concept in that paper: While issues of distrust can result in political or physical violence, they can also change as rivals come to comprehend one another better, which eventually results in a lowering of conflicts.

“We have the sight that financial establishments, the method federal governments are set up, standards, laws, are all very essential for economic development, for development,” Wolitzky claims. “Yet they can be unclear principles: What do these things mean?” His work digs into the systems underlying those concepts.

According to Wolitzky, “We have the sight that financial institutions, the way federal governments are established, standards, and laws are all very essential for economic development, for development.” However, they can be ambiguous: What do these items mean? His research focuses on the processes that underlie these thoughts.

Consider the article “Cycles of Dispute,” which Daron Acemoglu and I co-authored for the American Economic Testimonial in 2014. According to the article, observers have noted that misunderstandings and awe have sparked armed conflict and physical violence in a number of geopolitical contexts, including Uganda, Kenya, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, and many other places. It was unquestionably also the account Thucydides gave for the start of the Peloponnesian Wars, as Acemoglu and Wolitzky point out.

In any event, averting a conflict can lead to pre-emptive war. But how precisely do these situations deescalate? Dynamic observers have used the MIT authors’ model to describe events in Colombia, among other formerly troubled areas, because it shows how a spiral of animosity breaks down when one or both sides realize that the hostility was unnecessary.

Through the organization and illumination of disorganized groups of empirical data, these coherent designs can contribute significantly to the intellectual community. And Wolitzky is committed to creating significant occurrences rather than just small-scale personal decisions. “I believe that this department values people who have some breadth and can communicate with people in a variety of settings,” says Wolitzky. Wolitzky recently received tenure for his study and instruction.

Fresh and important

Wolitzky developed in Madison, New Jersey, and attended Harvard College as an undergraduate, participating in research for his final thesis on civic engagement.

According to Wolitzky, “I was interested in the intersection of game theory and modeling institutions generally from fairly early on.” He discovered that MIT offered a place where he could continue that program, so he enrolled there as a graduate student in business economics, working with professors like Glenn Ellison, who served as his primary advisor, Acemoglu, and Muhamet Yildiz, to name a few.

In just four years, Wolitzky completed the Ph.D. degree. The fact that Wolitzky is a graduate student at MIT only strengthens his perception of his broad topic knowledge.

Wolitzky claims, “One thing I did strongly take away from Glenn and Daron is this sense that, well, a question students sometimes ask is, ‘Should I concentrate on the technological aspects of a work, on doing something conceptually brand-new, or on the applied job?'” However, these are not either/or statements. A effective research study can both innovate and remain current. You have a setting here that I believe to be real and has inspired me as something to strive for.

Wolitzky began working as an assistant instructor at Stanford College after receiving his degree in 2012. Before coming back to MIT in 2014 as the Pentti J. K. Kouri Profession Development Chair in Business Economics, he lived in Palo Alto for two years. Wolitzky received a period in the spring of 2018 after being promoted as a link professor in 2016.

Advanced devices: Pad and pen

The “collegial” atmosphere at the MIT Division of Economics, according to Wolitzky, is crucial to his work. But some of his most important realizations come from peaceful expression.

“I sit in my office with a scratch pad and a pen and get the main points for my papers during those minutes,” says Wolitzky.

Wolitzky occasionally creates models that describe one aspect of life, such as national politics, only to realize later that some of those models also apply to something else altogether. A new article he wrote alone, “Understanding from Others’ results,” that will appear in the American Economic Review and deals with the adoption of innovations, was influenced by the “Cycles of Disagreement” model.

“You document some design to consider a dispute, and you realize it’s connected to these designs used for various other purposes, and you have to think about the connection,” explains Wolitzky. In this case, the model explains how people are more likely to adopt new technologies if they can clearly see the positive effects of doing so, but much less likely to do so if the technology merely increases efficiency while lowering costs.

They are both instances of dynamic social understanding, wherein you are unable to completely comprehend the motivations behind the actions of the other person, claims Wolitzky.

A 2013 article, “Cooperation with Network Tracking,” published in the Review of Economic Studies, originated in Wolitzky’s Ph.D. work. He also models and teaches network theory at MIT. In it, Wolitzky investigates, among other things, the ways in which central members of a network have an infectious impact and the degree to which examining individuals in a network encourages cooperation.

Additionally, Wolitzky offers the relatively new course 14.18 (Mathematical Economic Modeling), which helps undergraduates learn the modeling process and create their projects.

As you might imagine, it’s fascinating to see the diversity of things that students have ended up servicing, according to Wolitzky. With various students focusing on various iterations of critical interaction or the Bitcoin economy, it has been all over the place.

It feels comfortable. Wolitzky is undoubtedly drawn to encouraging students to find their own unique projects; after all, others at MIT have done the same for him. The values here have been handed down through generation to generation,” he adds.

Read the original article on MIT News.