How should a hotel persuade guests to skip a fresh set of sheets? Should a candidate spend campaign money on cable and radio, or on posts built to be clicked and shared? What could make deterrence fail on the Korean Peninsula? Students have taken on each of these questions in research sessions with Professor Ryan Fang of the University of Chicago, turning everyday puzzles and front-page issues into formal game-theory models.
An economist who models decisions
Fang is an economist whose teaching centers on game theory and information economics, fields that study how people, companies and governments choose when the outcome depends on what others do and on what each side knows. His own work uses mathematical modeling to study market behavior and strategic decision-making.
In practice, that means describing a real situation in terms of its players, their options and what each stands to gain, then solving the model to see which strategies hold up. The same method runs through his course and through the student papers described below.
Inside the course
Fang's course for the 2026 Seoul Research Program is about decision-making in the real world. It covers the mathematical, data-driven tools needed to analyze problems in markets, business and technology, and public policy. Students study topics such as auction theory and market design, then put them to work in team projects built on cases and datasets that Fang supplies. A team might design an auction mechanism, for example, or analyze a social system that has to balance fairness against efficiency.
The syllabus mixes lectures, seminars, problem-based learning and group discussion, and students connect the theory to hands-on data-analysis projects. The work is demanding, asking for advanced mathematical reasoning and practical problem-solving at once, and the course is research-driven throughout.
