USU Professor Investigating Police Accountability Using Game Theory

Law enforcement is a crucial part of our society; but how do we ensure the best possible outcomes as those tasked with that responsibility maintain law and order?

According to USU Economics and Finance Associate Professor Lucas Rentschler, one way to study this by looking to game theory.

Game theory is the study of strategic interactions, meaning how do people behave when their actions directly, or indirectly, affect each other. Rentschler says this is, at a fundamental level, the everyday interaction between civilians and law enforcement — what civilians do affects law enforcement and vice versa.

In bringing this to the lab, Rentschler says they are able to study social outcomes in a way that would be otherwise difficult or impossible to do using real world data. In this video, Rentschler outlines this work, and offers up a few findings from this project.