Eric van Damme is moving on

 It appears that the great Dutch game theorist Eric van Damme is retiring from Tilburg.

Here's the announcement from Tilburg:

Outgoing professor Van Damme: Economics serves people, 20th June 2023

"Game theory supports design markets

"Game theory is a mathematical theory that allows us to better understand how people resolve conflicts and can benefit from cooperation. Game theory is used in designing markets so that they function well, and auctions (such as this summer's auction of FM radio frequencies) to ensure that predetermined goals are met. The theory is also important in competition policy, such as in detecting cartels and preventing the abuse of dominant positions.

"In his speech, Van Damme discusses three examples from his own work: the theory of "Global Games," which predicts how coordination problems are solved and provides insights for regulating financial markets. Also, work on platform markets that played a role in a US Supreme Court ruling on the credit-card market. And finally recent research for the Ministry of Economic Affairs on the effectiveness of legislation on abuse of dominance.   

"Eric van Damme worked at Tilburg University since 1989. He started as a research professor at the then newly founded CentER and later served as director of TILEC, the Tilburg Law and Economics Center. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society (1993) and has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, KNAW, since 2003. In 2009 he was appointed Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion for his scholarly achievements."

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And below is a link to and some excerpts from his valedictory speech, in which (among other things) he explains game theory and economics to non-economists, and gives very eloquent thanks to those who have influenced him.  Among those are Stef Tijs, his undergraduate mentor, who he calls "the Godfather of Game Theory in the Netherlands," and later Reinhard Selten. (Selten wrote in his 1994 Nobel autobiography that  "Eric van Damme needed very little advice and is now a well known game theorist.").

Eric's lecture has a bilingual title:

The beauty and the beast; Het spel en de knikkers, Prof. dr. Eric van Damme

"I should still explain the first part of the title. The “beauty” refers to the world of science, and the “beast” is reality (including the economy).

...

"In this lecture, I will talk about how I tried to navigate between the beauty and the beast.

...

"An example: school choice

"Let me give an example of a “market” on which I did not work on myself, but which is important and which the non-economists among you might not view as a market. The question that we want to address: how, in a given city (or region), to allocate children to (high) schools? Schools differ in quality and parents prefer their children go to good schools. Furthermore, everything else equal, a school that is closer by is more attractive. It can easily happen that some schools are oversubscribed, i.e., there are more applications than there is capacity. Hence, there is scarcity of positions. In such a case, which kids should be allowed to enter their preferred school and which one not? There will be some criteria, which will be reflected in allocation rules. But what should these rules be? Lotteries are simple but may not lead to a good allocation. We also do not want to give the places to the kids of which the parents are willing to pay the most. What should we do? Note that if we really want a good solution, we should look at all the schools in the region or city together. How can we solve this problem? And what criteria should we use for judging allocations?

"There is an active line of research on these questions, with important contributions from economists from Amsterdam, who influenced the way the allocation is done there. (De Haan et al, 2023). The current literature is based on a pure mathematics paper, Gale and Shapley (1962) that was inspired by the process by which teenagers taking their first dancing lesson were matched: the girls standing on the side and the boys asking them to dance, with each boy moving on to another girl after a rejection until he found a partner or was rejected by all. Two very different situations, but with the same solution. Based on the ideas developed in this literature, we can now also match donor organs to patients in a more efficient way, and can save more lives; see Roth (2015) for a popular account. "

...

"I thank my parents. They always stimulated me to get the best out of myself and stressed the importance of education to get a better life than had been possible for them. For somebody in my generation and coming from Koewacht (Zeeuws Vlaanderen) it certainly was not common to go to university. I am grateful that my mother can be here today, healthy and strong, and still caring, not only for me, but also for the rest of our (extended) family. If I recall well, my parents’ dream was that I would become an engineer. Being all thumbs (met twee linkerhanden), this was impossible for me, but with a PhD

from Eindhoven University of Technology and with Nobel Prize Winner Al Roth speaking about “The economist as engineer” (Roth, 2002), I think I have come reasonably close.

"My headmaster of elementary school, Meester Lammens, told my parents that my Cito-toets was not representative of my capabilities and urged them to not take it too seriously. I was fortunate that, when I went to high-school, the Mammoetwet had just entered into force so that I could go from Mavo, through Havo and Atheneum, to the university without delay.

"Studying mathematics in Nijmegen showed me its beauty and taught me the importance of learning by doing. After the lectures, we had tutorials to practice the material, but, at first, it frequently seemed that the questions had nothing to do with what had been taught. But then discovering the link and the corresponding solution by oneself (with only a little bit of help) was always exciting. I am immensely grateful to Stef Tijs, the Godfather of Game Theory

in the Netherlands. Everybody who has interacted with Stef knows what an inspirational figure he was. After having followed his courses, it was clear that Game Theory would be my area and I wrote my thesis under his supervision. Stef also helped me on many other occasions and more than could be expected, and he also ensured that I got my first job in Eindhoven to do my PhD there.

"In Eindhoven, I had the privilege to work in the Operations Research Group of Jaap Wessels. This was a fantastic environment offering excellent conditions for research and stimulating supervision. The research culture forced me to go out at an early stage and present my work at conferences. When it became clear that I preferred to work on Game Theory problems rather than things like inventory management, Jaap allowed me to follow my interests, although it was only a side interest of the group. Jaap, however and rightly, insisted that I should find a “true expert” who was willing to testify that my work was indeed pushing the research frontier forward. When I met Reinhard Selten at a conference in Oberwolfach (Germany), he was willing to act as a second supervisor, even if at first I had tried to convince him that his concept of subgame perfect equilibrium did not make sense

and had thus demonstrated how much I still had to learn. Reinhard and I had many discussions, for which he also invited me to his home in Rheda-Wiedenbrück. I think these were the most intensive discussions I ever had. I am very, very grateful to Reinhard. Throughout my career I have kept Reinhard, Jaap and Stef in mind and I tried to treat my students as they (my teachers) had treated me."