International Society of Dynamic Games

Dynamic Games and Applications Seminar

Electricity Systems Without a Reliable Grid: A Multi-Lens Analysis of Investment, Markets, and Planning

May 7, 2026   11:00 AM — 12:00 PM (Montreal time)

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In contexts of persistent grid unreliability, electricity systems evolve through the decentralized and often uncoordinated adoption of individual and community-level solutions. This talk analyzes such systems through complementary analytical lenses: optimal community-level investments under uncertain grid access, market dynamics in decentralized microgrids under weak regulation, and centralized planning with strategic consumers. Linking these lenses reveals how unreliability challenges conventional approaches to coordination, planning, and system design.

Dynamic Games and Applications Seminar

Progressive taxes in groundwater regulation: a differential game

Apr 30, 2026 11:00 AM — 12:00 PM (Montreal time)

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In this paper, we investigate optimal regulation to manage a groundwater extraction problem through a leader–follower differential game. A water agency, acting as the leader, selects two policy instruments, a water tax and a water threshold, to control withdrawals and preserve the aquifer. Farmers, as followers, determine their optimal extraction levels given the water agency’s policy. We compare scenarios in which the regulator controls both instruments with more restrictive cases. We show that a linear–progressive tax scheme strictly dominates linear taxation in terms of aquifer preservation and social welfare. Moreover, allowing feedback adjustment of the water threshold performs close to the fully flexible benchmark.

Dynamic Games and Applications Seminar

Investment under Uncertainty in a Durable Goods Market

Apr 2, 2026 11:00 AM — 12:00 PM (Montreal time)

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We consider a monopolistic firm that decides on the timing and production capacity for introducing a durable good into a market characterized by consumer heterogeneity and project value uncertainty. We show that when consumers are less heterogeneous, the firm should invest later, i.e. wait for product attractiveness to grow to a sufficiently high level, in a large production capacity. In case consumers are very heterogeneous, the firm should invest early in a small production capacity. In the latter case, selling the durable good in small quantities enables the firm to price discriminate over time, generating a high payoff. It follows that in an economic environment where it is optimal for the firm to invest early in a small capacity, i.e. when the trend and volatility of the project value is low, the firm’s payoff is higher when consumer preferences are more heterogeneous. On the other hand, in an economic environment where it is optimal for the firm to invest late in a large capacity, i.e. when the trend and volatility are high, the firm prefers more homogeneous consumer preferences. The fact that an increase in consumer heterogeneity may have a positive effect on the firm value distinguishes the durable goods case from market settings with non-durable products.

(with Herbert Dawid and Xingang Wen)