Decisions, Strategy, and Behavior

The Decisions, Strategy, and Behavior course explores how individuals and organizations make choices in strategic and uncertain environments. Drawing from game theory, decision science, and behavioral economics, students will examine both rational models of decision-making and systematic ways human decision-making tends to deviate. The course introduces theoretical insights and connects them to real-world contexts, including markets, negotiations, public institutions, voting, social dilemmas, and other strategic and/or uncertain decision settings.

Topics (and examples of applications) covered in the course include

• Techniques for decision making under uncertainty
• Forming and updating of beliefs and forecasts
• Assessing the value of information and decision-timing flexibility
• Game theory concepts, Nash, Mixed Strategy, and Bayesian-Nash Equilibrium
• The role of information and beliefs in strategic interactions
• Market settings with asymmetries in knowledge between parties
• Human heuristics when dealing with complexity and uncertainty
• Fairness views, connected to negotiations, reciprocity and cooperation behavior
• Examples of institution design, private and public, in relation to behavioral patterns

Knowledge

• understand central concepts in game theory, decision science, and behavioral economics.
• be acquainted with both rational models and common behavioral patterns in human decision-making.
• be familiar with concepts of behavioral factors such as heuristics, biases, fairness views, reciprocity, and cooperation.

Skills

• be able to analyze strategic and uncertain decision situations using tools from game theory and decision science.
• be able to apply theoretical insights to practical examples from markets, negotiations, institutions, and everyday life.
• be able to communicate and discuss decision problems and strategic situations in a structured way.

General competence

• improve their ability to think strategically and systematically about decisions under risk, uncertainty, and in interaction with other decisionmakers.
• improve their ability to connect theoretical models with practical applications in society, business, and policy.
• improve their ability to critically reflect on institutional design and policy implications in light of both rational and behavioral decision frameworks.