Beauty contest – what guessing numbers tells us about Game Theory | with Rosemarie Nagel
About this episode
The episode discusses the Beauty Contest game in economics with insights from Rosemarie Nagel on strategic reasoning and decision-making.
In this episode, we speak with Rosemarie Nagel about the Beauty Contest, a classic game in economics. She introduces the setup, its origins, and the early research behind it. We then take a deeper look at the key insights from the Beauty Contest, in particular the concept of level-k reasoning and what it reveals about strategic thinking. Furthermore, Rosemarie shares how findings from these experimental studies have been linked to research on brain activity, offering a unique perspective on decision-making and the functioning of our brains. Finally, she offers a connection to real-world problems involving strategic reasoning. Rosemarie Nagel is an ICREA Research Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and the Barcelona School of Economics (BSE). As an experimental economist, her research builds bridges between economic theory and behavioral evidence through cognitive models informed by game theory, psychology, neuroscientific methods, and both laboratory and field experiments. Find two papers on the beauty contest game played with newspaper readers and with neuroscientific tools.
People in this episode
Guest: Rosemarie Nagel
Topics covered
- game theory
- economics
- strategic thinking
- behavioral evidence
- decision-making
Keywords
- Beauty Contest
- game theory
- level-k reasoning
- strategic thinking
- experimental economics
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona School of Economics, ICREA
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