Ken Binmore 'Social Norms or Social Preferences' 24th April 2012

15:35, Tue 14 Aug 2012

On the 24th April 2012 Ken Binmore, one of the world's leading game theorists, a founder of the modern economic theory of bargaining, and a pioneer of experimental economics presented a special lecture on 'Social Norms or Social Preferences' at the University of Warwick Department of Economics. An Emeritus Professor of Economics at University College London and Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol, Binmore took up economics after a career in mathematics. He has since been at the forefront of game theoretical developments. He was awarded the CBE in 2001, largely for his role as the leading designer of the UK’s third-generation (3G) mobile-phone license auction, one of the prime examples of economic theory in application. At that time, 2000, the telecommunications auction was described as the biggest auction ever. It raised £22.5 billion, then equivalent to 2.5 percent of GNP. After the auction, “Newsweek” magazine described Binmore as the “ruthless, poker-playing economist” who destroyed the telecom industry. However, as Binmore himself later observed, “The telecom industry doesn’t seem to (have been) destroyed at all.” He went on to design and implement 3G spectrum auctions in a number of other countries, including Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium. Binmore is a founding director of the Centre for Economic learning and Social Evolution an interdisciplinary research centre at UCL that is devoted to the study of those areas of human behaviour in which economics and psychology come together. His lecture was hosted by the Department of Economics and DR@W.

(M4V format, 119 MB)

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