<p>Having spent time with a few eager students of game theory myself, I sense that the &quot;real&quot; question you might have wanted to ask was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is the best way to motivate people to get inoculated, given that they have varying attitudes towards the vaccine or vaccination in general.*</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To answer that question from a normative perspective, i.e. assuming everyone is rational in the economic sense, we actually need the theory not of games but of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong>mechanism design</strong></a>. Game theory's primary concern is to predict the outcome(s) of some given strategic interaction, regardless of whether those outcomes are desirable (e.g. mutual defection is the predicted, albeit inefficient, outcome in Prisoner's Dilemma). On the contrary, the goal of mechanism design is to implement some desirable outcome via a strategic interaction; that is, to come up with a suitable game whose equilibrium is the outcome desired by the mechanism designer. See <a href="https://digital.wwnorton.com/88391/r/goto/cfi/256!/4" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Dixit et al. (5th ed, ch. 14-15)</a> for an easy introduction, or <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691129082/game-theory" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Tadelis (2013, ch.14)</a> for a more rigorous treatment at an advanced undergraduate level.</p>
<p>Of particular relevance here is a special case of mechanism design called <a href="https://economics.mit.edu/files/20079" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong>information design</strong></a>, where the designer (e.g. a government or public health authority) uses a suitable information revelation strategy (e.g. when and what data to publish) to persuade the public to get inoculated, given that they hold a variety of initial beliefs about the efficacy of the vaccine and will rationally update their beliefs based on information released by the designer. Information design is still at the forefront of economic research, so the linked <em>JEL</em> paper, which I consider above the undergraduate level, is probably as introductory a summary on this topic as you can get for now.</p>
<p>There is also a positive approach to address the above question. By positive I mean the  approach is founded on the acknowledgement that people are not perfectly rational and are predisposed to act in a certain way when appropriately primed. A prominent example is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory" rel="nofollow noreferrer">nudge theory</a>, which draws on insights from psychology and economic experiments to frame choice problems in such a way that people are more likely to pick the option favored by the so-called &quot;choice architect&quot; (the behavioral economic counterpart of a mechanism designer).</p>
<p>Lastly, although there is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_game_theory" rel="nofollow noreferrer">behavioral game theory</a> as such, I feel that it's not as relevant to your question because much of the literature is devoted to explaining the gaps between actual play and predicted play of some canonical games.</p>
<hr />
<p><sub>*I'm not quite sure what you mean by &quot;appointment setting&quot; beyond its logistic aspect, so I will ignore it.</sub></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-30T23:12:24.767Z
Thanks for rephrasing my question. The goal was to get more people vaccinated. In the US, one has to set an appointment to get vaccinated. The question is: will people overbook to increase their chances of getting vaccinated or will they be pleased with the slots they get. Moreover, some locations only give one brand of the vaccine and some people may prefer Pfizer over Moderna or vice versa.
heretoinfinity
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-30T20:50:58.673Z
2021-03-30T20:50:58.673Z
Herr K.
<p>New to game theory and I started thinking about the difficulty of setting up an appointment for the covid vaccine.</p>
<p>Could this be something to study in game theory?
Would we need to figure out the Nash equilibrium?</p>
<p>The way I see it is we have N players, and each player may or may not want a vaccine, but we also have a government player who wants the most vaccinated. Each player has some payoff.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-30T15:07:54.117Z
Any situation with multiple agents can be studied with game theory, and here a lot of details are missing.  Question is: what is the aim? What would you gain by modelling the given situation with GT?
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-30T15:10:32.003Z
Could you give examples of the "lot of details that are missing"? I am trying to get a better understanding of what's needed.
heretoinfinity
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-30T15:11:30.913Z
*My personal opinion* (seconding [Ariel Rubinstein's](https://fivebooks.com/best-books/ariel-rubinstein-on-game-theory/)) is that the marketing of game theory outstrips its actual applicability.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-30T15:18:46.193Z
Example of "*a lot of details are missing*": There are two basic players. Each can decide if they want the vaccine or not. Whoever gets the vaccine gets a payoff of 1, whoever does not gets a payoff of 0. There is also a government player. It does nothing, but gets a payoff that is equal to the number of people getting vaccinated. Actions are chosen simultaneously. This is a game theoretical model of vaccination. Is it a good one? Perhaps not! But it does not neglect to incorporate any details that you have laid out ($\emptyset$); nor does it go against any of your goals ($\emptyset$).
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-30T15:20:47.953Z
Thanks for the article and response. I may end up not delving much into game theory then.
heretoinfinity
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-30T15:26:13.010Z
You should definitely get the basic idea. Incentives and strategic interactions are nothing to snarl at. Just don't believe that you can calculate these with any precision in a real world setting, or that most multi-agent situations should be studied by game theory.
Giskard
<game-theory><health-economics>
Can vaccine distribution and appointment setting up be considered game theory?
heretoinfinity
# Can vaccine distribution and appointment setting up be considered game theory?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-03-30)

New to game theory and I started thinking about the difficulty of setting up an appointment for the covid vaccine.

Could this be something to study in game theory?
Would we need to figure out the Nash equilibrium?

The way I see it is we have N players, and each player may or may not want a vaccine, but we also have a government player who wants the most vaccinated. Each player has some payoff.

**Tags:** game-theory, health-economics

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Any situation with multiple agents can be studied with game theory, and here a lot of details are missing.  Question is: what is the aim? What would you gain by modelling the given situation with GT?  
> **username_0**: Could you give examples of the "lot of details that are missing"? I am trying to get a better understanding of what's needed.  
> **username_1**: *My personal opinion* (seconding [Ariel Rubinstein's](https://fivebooks.com/best-books/ariel-rubinstein-on-game-theory/)) is that the marketing of game theory outstrips its actual applicability.  
> **username_1**: Example of "*a lot of details are missing*": There are two basic players. Each can decide if they want the vaccine or not. Whoever gets the vaccine gets a payoff of 1, whoever does not gets a payoff of 0. There is also a government player. It does nothing, but gets a payoff that is equal to the number of people getting vaccinated. Actions are chosen simultaneously. This is a game theoretical model of vaccination. Is it a good one? Perhaps not! But it does not neglect to incorporate any details that you have laid out ($\emptyset$); nor does it go against any of your goals ($\emptyset$).  
> **username_0**: Thanks for the article and response. I may end up not delving much into game theory then.  
> **username_1**: You should definitely get the basic idea. Incentives and strategic interactions are nothing to snarl at. Just don't believe that you can calculate these with any precision in a real world setting, or that most multi-agent situations should be studied by game theory.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2021-03-30. Score: 4

Having spent time with a few eager students of game theory myself, I sense that the "real" question you might have wanted to ask was:

> What is the best way to motivate people to get inoculated, given that they have varying attitudes towards the vaccine or vaccination in general.\*

To answer that question from a normative perspective, i.e. assuming everyone is rational in the economic sense, we actually need the theory not of games but of [**mechanism design**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design). Game theory's primary concern is to predict the outcome(s) of some given strategic interaction, regardless of whether those outcomes are desirable (e.g. mutual defection is the predicted, albeit inefficient, outcome in Prisoner's Dilemma). On the contrary, the goal of mechanism design is to implement some desirable outcome via a strategic interaction; that is, to come up with a suitable game whose equilibrium is the outcome desired by the mechanism designer. See [Dixit et al. (5th ed, ch. 14-15)](https://digital.wwnorton.com/88391/r/goto/cfi/256!/4) for an easy introduction, or [Tadelis (2013, ch.14)](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691129082/game-theory) for a more rigorous treatment at an advanced undergraduate level.

Of particular relevance here is a special case of mechanism design called [**information design**](https://economics.mit.edu/files/20079), where the designer (e.g. a government or public health authority) uses a suitable information revelation strategy (e.g. when and what data to publish) to persuade the public to get inoculated, given that they hold a variety of initial beliefs about the efficacy of the vaccine and will rationally update their beliefs based on information released by the designer. Information design is still at the forefront of economic research, so the linked *JEL* paper, which I consider above the undergraduate level, is probably as introductory a summary on this topic as you can get for now.

There is also a positive approach to address the above question. By positive I mean the approach is founded on the acknowledgement that people are not perfectly rational and are predisposed to act in a certain way when appropriately primed. A prominent example is the [nudge theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory), which draws on insights from psychology and economic experiments to frame choice problems in such a way that people are more likely to pick the option favored by the so-called "choice architect" (the behavioral economic counterpart of a mechanism designer).

Lastly, although there is [behavioral game theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_game_theory) as such, I feel that it's not as relevant to your question because much of the literature is devoted to explaining the gaps between actual play and predicted play of some canonical games.

---

\*I'm not quite sure what you mean by "appointment setting" beyond its logistic aspect, so I will ignore it.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for rephrasing my question. The goal was to get more people vaccinated. In the US, one has to set an appointment to get vaccinated. The question is: will people overbook to increase their chances of getting vaccinated or will they be pleased with the slots they get. Moreover, some locations only give one brand of the vaccine and some people may prefer Pfizer over Moderna or vice versa.  

---

