Dr Rohit Prasad, a Professor of Economics at MDI, Gurgaon took a training session on Game Theory and Auction theory for mjunction executives on February 24 and 25. Twenty three junctionites attended the programme, which comprised a mix of theory and practical demonstrations.
Dr Prasad has a Ph.D in Economic Theory from SUNY Stony Brook, USA where he studied Game Theory under the Nobel Laureate Professor Robert Aumann. The focus of these two days was on learning through experiencing various situations and auctions through a combination of Online and Offline demonstrations.
The mjunction CEO Mr Vinaya Varma welcomed Dr Prasad to mjunction, and Dr Prasad gifted a signed copy of his book “Startup Sutra” to him.
The various aspects that the class was taken through were: Prisoners’ dilemma, Auctions with Private values, auctions with common values and Bid shading.
There are five commonly used auction types – Double auction, Sealed bid (first Price), Sealed Bids (2nd Price), Dutch auction and English Auction. Variants of these auctions were studied with small and large number of bidders, with public and secret Reserve Price respectively.
Among other practical demonstrations, Dr Prasad auctioned a jar of money as well as an IPL player auction.