Events

Josep M. Colomer

Game theory: from the Cold War to the currency war (and the Hollywood Oscars)

The Rafael del Pino Foundation hosted the Keynote Lecture by Josep M. Colomer entitled "Game Theory: from the Cold War to the currency war (and the Hollywood Oscars)", which inaugurated the series of conferences "Behaviour, Mathematics and Politics", on 26 October 2010.

Josep M. Colomer stated: "To improve the Spanish electoral system, it would be necessary to give greater proportionality to the allocation of seats with respect to votes and to introduce mechanisms such as open lists or preferential voting on a list; even double voting for a candidate and a party. These are formulas that exist in Europe that make it possible to elect not only a party, but also the people who are going to occupy the seats. In terms of both proportionality and the selection of elected candidates, there is much room for improvement, since the Spanish electoral system was agreed during the Transition as a formula for proportional representation that made it possible to accommodate the groups that could support the process of change at that time. In many respects it is a very inefficient system. It gives representation to the parties on the basis of a proportional rule, but it produces over-representation of the two big parties, even creating majorities of seats with a minority of votes. In fact, there is always a majority of voters who did not vote for the party that finally comes to power.

Regarding the so-called "currency war", as an expert in game theory Josep M. Colomer argued that "the United States wants China to revalue the Yuan to improve its exports and threatens with trade barriers and other retaliatory measures that are not very credible. I think the game model they are playing is the 'chicken' game; to see who chickens out first. This game has two possible outcomes: either China wins, or the US wins. But it is very difficult in this kind of structure to achieve a cooperative outcome by the direct action of both sides. The efficient outcome, which would be an exchange rate of the yuan in line with purchasing power and freedom of trade, can only be achieved if there is an external authority imposing these criteria. The IMF is trying to move in this direction, but does not yet have the right tools to do so.

Josep M. Colomer gave the inaugural lecture in the series "Behaviour, Mathematics and Politics", which the Rafael del Pino Foundation set up with the aim of helping to understand the processes of decision-making and reasoning in order to understand reality.

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The Rafael del Pino Foundation is not responsible for any comments, opinions or statements made by third parties. In this respect, the FRP is not obliged to monitor the views expressed by such third parties who participate in its activities and which are expressed as a result of their inalienable right to freedom of expression and under their own responsibility. The contents included in the summary of this conference are the result of the discussions that took place during the conference organised for this purpose at the Foundation and are the sole responsibility of its authors.