Week 11: How (Not) to Fix a Zero-Sum Game

What intervention-design theory says about changing incentive structures versus just redistributing who suffers under them

17 May 2027

Outline#

• mechanism design 101: changing payoffs versus changing players
• why most “fixes” to zero-sum games just move the losers around, from tang ping’s critics in week 9 to the boardroom Red Queen of week 6
• three interventions that actually shifted a system’s equilibrium, and what they had in common
• direct prep for the final project brief