A few days ago we heard the story of how a waitress rescued an 86 year old lady who been stuck in her bath for four days. The waitress contacted the police after becoming concerned that Doreen had not come in for her usual lunch and wine. A story with a happy ending. A story with a not so happy ending is the infamous murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 in New York. This murder caught the public's attention because of the supposed number of witnesses who did nothing to stop the crime. The exact details of what happened are debated . One thing is, however, for certain: Several people must have seen or heard the attack and none of them called the police. To try and make sense of these conflicting stories let us look at simple game theoretic model. Suppose that there is someone called Doreen that needs rescuing and there are n witnesses who can call the police. If (at least) one person calls the police then Doreen...
Some random thoughts on game theory, behavioural economics, and human behaviour