Regulation restricts the action of economic agents—in general. It is omnipresent. Why does regulation exist? In a free-market economy, why does the government choose to place restrictions on the decisions of certain agents and actions? George Stigler (1911-1991) introduced his “Theory of Economic Regulation” in 1971 trying to answer this question in a well-established framework, on the basis of some previous empirical arguments such as Normative Analysis as a Positive Theory (NPT) or Capture Theory (CT). ...

In an enchanting solo that captures the essence of Frederick Ashton’s choreographic genius, Marianela Nunez transforms the stage into a canvas of poetic motion in her rendition of the Female Variation from “Les Rendezvous.” Recorded unofficially and shared on Bilibili, Nunez’s performance is a masterclass in balletic expression, marrying the technical with the emotional in a dance that feels like a living artwork. The dance is light-heartedly sweet. Nela showed of her brilliance in mastering the emotion while displaying superior technique. Watch here. ...

June 18, The Royal Ballet presented three of Ashton’s most celebrated and expertly choreographed pieces set to music by Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff and Auber. This mixed programme opens with the buoyant Les Rendezvous, a fizzing succession of dances following a group of friends who meet in a park. The Dream, Ashton’s witty and tender reimagining of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, follows set to Felix Mendelssohn’s gossamer light music. The one-act ballet follows two pairs of mortal lovers, their fates at the hands of Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of Fairies. Ashton’s lyrical masterpiece, Rhapsody, concludes the programme, its explosive jumps and fleet footwork a bravura match for Sergei Rachmaninoff’s virtuosic Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. ...

Following yesterday’s post (here), let’s delve deeper into Stackelberg Games and the key points of the paper, particularly the addition of context to the problem setting. Regret Minimization in Stackelberg Games with Side Information Keegan Harris, Zhiwei Steven Wu, Maria-Florina Balcan (2024) | paper’s arxiv link recap of the mode: A Stackelberg Security Game is a structured competitive setting involving a defender and an attacker. The defender commits to a strategy $ \mathbf p \in \mathbb{R}^n $ over $ n $ targets, and the attacker selects a target. The utility outcome for both parties depends on their actions and possibly some unknown world state event. ...

Of course, the general purpose of an academic presentation is multifaceted (see an older post about it), as discussed here. Nevertheless, I’ve once heard someone say that the key purpose of a talk at a conference is to make your audience interested in reading your work after the talk ends. I attended the RAIN seminar yesterday at Y2E2, Stanford, where Nina Balcan presented one of her latest works. Personally, I have a general interest in research that involves complex human behaviors. But Nina Balcan’s talk was particularly captivating. So, I decided to read a bit of the paper, Online Learning in Stackelberg Security Games : ...

I had the very fortune to listen to Nina Balcan giving a talk on one of her latest work, Online learning in Stackelberg Security Games: ABSTRACT In a Stackelberg Security Game, a defender commits to a randomized deployment of security resources, and an attacker best responds by attacking a target that maximizes their utility. While algorithms for computing an optimal strategy for the defender to commit to have been used in several real-world applications, deployed applications require knowledge about the utility function of the potential attacker. In this talk I will describe an online learning approach for addressing this problem. We consider algorithms that prescribe a randomized strategy for the defender at each step against an adversarially chosen sequence of attackers and obtain feedback on their choices. I will discuss online algorithms whose regret (when compared to the best fixed strategy in hindsight) is sublinear in the number of time steps. I will also consider an extension that handles auxiliary contextual information that is often readily available to each player (e.g. traffic patterns or weather conditions) and discuss what no regret guarantees are possible in this even more realistic scenario. ...

Communicate in English is one thing, using English as a foreign language in professional academic setting is completely another level of difficulty. I’m taking Oral Presentation, (EFSLANG 691S) this summer at Stanford, which is a course designed for advanced graduate students to practice in academic presentation skills. At the very beginning of the course, the first introductory slide introduces four questions that relates with almost the deepest starting point of presentations, along with my thinkings ...

I am back in Stanford, to do research with professor Modibo Camara in the Stanford Graduate School of Business while taking a few interesting classes. Some of my friends stayed in the Bay area. Got together to have coffee or dinner and talk with them–it’s interesting to see how our state of minds evolve over time. Some things never change though. Coincidentally, two of the friends recommended me two piece of music. Here they are: ...

A friend in Stanford recommended the 2nd moment of Mozart Symphony No.40 in G minor to me. “It was a good waltz”, he said. Well, it is arguably one of Mozart’s most famous symphony pieces. Listen here for its infamous first movement Molto allegro. But the second movement (listen here) is not necessarily the best dancable waltz. For waltz music that actually intended for dance, one should go for Tchaikovsky’s ballet suites, they have the perfect tempo and momentum for dances. Mozart’s commissioned work never really aligned with his jobs–he always goes to far. ...

Understand the transfer of football clubs and their impact–from an interesting case study from GouXiongHui, read original article here (in Chinese). Apart from its introduction that provides a clear, brief overview of the modern football market, this report is well structured and is an excellent example of crafting a data science analysis analysis. basics The Big Five refers to the association football markets of England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France. As of 2024, they are the five European leaders in size and popularity of the main domestic football leagues – the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 respectively in men’s football. ...