Behavioral Game Theory

The willingness of skiers to leave their skis lying about outside of mountain restaurants has always intrigued me, even as a young child. Skis are expensive, there is a vibrant second hard market, and given that most skis look similar it would be easy enough to do the 'sorry I thought they were mine' trick. It would just seem so straightforward to 'make a business' out of stealing skis! Yet skiers still leave their skis lying about. And in Switzerland they seem to leave everything about - helmet, boots, rucksack. It is the equivalent of students at the university canteen leaving all their i-phones, laptops etc. laying about outside (without any passwords).           That skiers are trusting, and seemingly deserving of that trust is wonderful. It frees everyone up to enjoy the mountains rather than worry how to padlock their skis to a slopestyle rail. Our willingness to trust is, though, a real...

Before Christmas there was a bill brought before parliament that would force large companies to disclose any pay gap between men and women. The bill has no chance of being implemented before the general election and so was largely symbolic. It still, though, raises some interesting questions. The law already requires that men and women receive the same pay for the same job. The purpose of this new bill was largely to try and enforce that rule. Would it work?           I do not think so. To see why consider a hypothetical firm with the workforce summarized in the table below. There is a huge pay gap of £16,500 between the average man and woman. What's causing that? (a) Men are more likely to have 'higher' positions in the firm - senior managers are disproportionally male and cleaners disproportionally female. (b) In higher positions men get more than women - a male senior manager gets £20,000 more than a female counterpart. ...