Description:

Abstract: Many competitive situations can be represented as dynamic stochastic games in which there is an unobserved state that affects the players’ payoffs.  Players try to learn both the environment and their competitors’ strategies.  Without competition, to learn the environment, a player needs exploration and more information is always beneficial.  This talk will discuss how competition can significantly change the structure of optimal policies and lead to the players’ optimally not learning the environment.

Bio: John R. Birge is the Hobart W. Williams Distinguished Service Professor of Operations Management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  He studies mathematical modeling of systems under uncertainty, especially for maximizing operational and financial goals using the methodologies of stochastic programming and large-scale optimization.  He has applied his work in a variety of contexts and industries including energy, finance, health care, manufacturing, and transportation. He has published widely and is the recipient of the Best Paper Award from the Japan Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Fellows Award, the Institute of Industrial Engineers Medallion Award and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

A former dean of the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Northwestern University, he has worked as a consultant for a variety of firms including the University of Michigan Hospitals, Deutsche Bank, Allstate Insurance Company, and Morgan Stanley.

Birge earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Princeton University in 1977 and a master's degree and a PhD in operations research from Stanford University in 1979 and 1980, respectively.