Institute for Mathematical Sciences Event Archive
Online registration form Enquiries |
|
Workshop on the Probabilistic Impulse Behind Modern Economic Theory
(11 - 18 January 2011)
Organizing Committee · Visitors and Participants · Overview · Activities · Venue
Chair
- M. Ali Khan (The Johns Hopkins University)
Co-chair
- Yeneng Sun (National University of Singapore)
The two subjects of probability and economic theory have been increasingly intertwined since at least the mid-nineteenth century, and there have been three noteworthy developments in the modern period dating from the 1960's: first, a view of "perfect competition" as being based on a continuum of economically negligible traders formalized as an atomless measure-space; second, individual strategic interaction in "large societies" conceived as being dependent on societal summary statistics, an average or a distribution, rather than on each and everyone's actions; and third, intertemporal resource allocation as dependent on expectations and beliefs, and thereby, on individual learning and updating, leading to the persistence or elimination of disagreement over time. The development of the subject can be seen to revolve around
the rigorous formalization of fundamental intuitions: aggregation removes idiosyncratic uncertainty; arbitrage leads only systematic risk to be priced-out in the market; dispersed and diffused information eliminates the need for randomization; irrational exuberance can be a temporary-equilibrium phenomenon; the persistence of disagreement underscores the need to agree to disagree; and finally, independently-diffused information rationalizes ex ante decisions
as ex post equilibria with the incentive-compatibility of ex ante efficiency.
The point of departure for this workshop is that these formalizations hinge crucially on the probabilistic notion of independence, and require the development of new mathematics to cope with diffculties in implementing this notion in the context of an exact law of large numbers. Initially developed on the back of what have come to be called atomless Loeb probability spaces, the theory has now received consolidation in the so-called saturation property, and through the consideration of saturated probability spaces, connected to Dorothy Maharam's work on measure-algebras. These ideas are now seeing systematic application to basic questions in (i) general equilibrium theory, (ii) cooperative and non-cooperative game theory, (iii) economic dynamics and the theory of descriptive and optimum growth, (iv) matching theory and evolutionary economics and (v) decision theory. All use the vocabulary and vernacular of probability to formalize and investigate their subject matter.
The objective of this conference is then two-fold: first to review the exciting advances that have been made, and second, to expose the developed, and developing, theory to differing expert perspectives and points of view. With individuals necessarily working in their individual narrow domains, the main mission of the workshop is to foster interdisciplinary communication and dialogue between economists and mathematicians, and by participating in this exciting venture, local scholars will have ample opportunities of interacting with international experts at the highest level.
Wednesday, 12 Jan 2011 |
|
09:00am - 09:25am |
Registration |
09:25am - 09:30am |
Opening Remarks |
|
Chair: Barkley Rosser, James Madison University, USA |
09:30am - 10:15am |
Stochastic evolutionary game theory: overview and recent results William H. Sandholm, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA |
10:15am - 10:45am |
--- Coffee Break --- |
10:45am - 11:30am |
Equity and incentives in large asymmetric information economies Stuart McDonald, University of Queensland, Australia |
11:30am - 12:15pm |
Existence of equilibrium in an incomplete market model with endogenous labor supply Shenghao Zhu, National University of Singapore |
12:15pm - 02:15pm |
--- Lunch --- |
|
Chair: William H. Sandholm, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA |
02:15pm - 03:00pm |
Asset market games of survival: a synthesis of evolutionary and dynamic games Igor Evstigneev, University of Manchester, UK |
03:00pm - 03:45pm |
Equilibrium strategies independent of volatility and the size of rivals Zhixiang Zhang, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China |
03:45pm - 04:15pm |
--- Coffee Break --- |
04:15pm - 05:00pm |
The probabilistic underpinnings of perfect competition M. Ali Khan, The Johns Hopkins University, USA |
Thursday, 13 Jan 2011 |
09:15am - 09:30am |
Registration |
|
Chair: Igor Evstigneev, University of Manchester, UK |
09:30am - 10:15am |
Equilibrium for discontinuous games and optimal regulation in electricity markets Alejandro Jofré, University of Chile, Chile |
10:15am - 10:45am |
--- Coffee Break --- |
10:45am - 11:30am |
Belief operators in infinite models Xiao Luo, National University of Singapore |
11:30am - 12:15pm |
Risk and utility in financial optimization and equilibrium Terry Rockafellar, University of Washington, USA |
12:15pm - 02:15pm |
--- Lunch --- |
|
Chair: Stuart McDonald, University of Queensland, Australia |
02:15pm - 03:00pm |
Behaving probabilistically: Axiomatics, genetics and economics Soo Hong Chew, National University of Singapore |
Friday, 14 Jan 2011 |
09:15am - 09:30am |
Registration |
|
Chair: Alejandro Jofré, University of Chile, Chile |
09:30am - 10:15am |
On the foundations of mathematical economics Barkley Rosser, James Madison University, USA |
10:15am - 10:45am |
--- Coffee Break --- |
10:45am - 11:30am |
Finite and countable partitions of unity for finitely additive measures Kali Rath, University of Notre Dame, USA |
11:30am - 12:15pm |
Large anonymous games with social traits Haomiao Yu, Ryerson University, Canada |
12:15pm - 02:15pm |
--- Lunch --- |
|
Chair: Kali Rath, University of Notre Dame, USA |
02:15pm - 03:00pm |
Impact of incomplete information Muhamet Yildiz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA |
03:00pm - 03:45pm |
A structure theorem for rationalizability in the normal form of dynamic games Yi-Chun Chen, National University of Singapore |
03:45pm - 04:15pm |
--- Coffee Break --- |
04:15pm - 05:00pm |
Large Bayesian games Yeneng Sun, National University of Singapore |
Monday, 17 Jan 2011 |
09:15am - 09:30am |
Registration |
09:30am - 10:00am |
Saturation and games with private information Yongchao Zhang, National University of Singapore |
10:00am - 10:30am |
Independent random partial matching with infinite types Xiang Sun, National University of Singapore |
10:30am - 11:00am |
--- Coffee Break --- |
11:00am - 11:30am |
Recursive multiple temptations Bin Miao, National University of Singapore |
11:30am - 12:00nn |
Athakrit Thepmongkol, National University of Singapore |
Students and researchers who are interested in attending these activities and who do not require financial aid are requested to complete the online registration form.
The following do not need to register:
- Those invited to participate.
- Those applying for financial support.
Organizing Committee · Visitors and Participants · Overview · Activities · Venue
