Apr 20, 2026
In this
episode, we speak with Rosemarie Nagel about the Beauty Contest, a
classic game in economics. She introduces the setup, its origins,
and the early research behind it. We then take a deeper look at the
key insights from the Beauty Contest, in particular the concept of
level-k reasoning and what it reveals about strategic thinking.
Furthermore, Rosemarie shares how findings from these experimental
studies have been linked to research on brain activity, offering a
unique perspective on decision-making and the functioning of our
brains.
Finally, she offers a connection to real-world problems involving
strategic reasoning.
Rosemarie Nagel is an ICREA Research Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and the Barcelona School of Economics (BSE). As an experimental economist, her research builds bridges between economic theory and behavioral evidence through cognitive models informed by game theory, psychology, neuroscientific methods, and both laboratory and field experiments. Find two papers on the beauty contest game played with newspaper readers and with neuroscientific tools.