Keynote Speaker:

Zhou Zhen, Associate Professor and Doctoral Program Academic Director at the PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University; concurrently Director of the Research Center for Financial Risk Prevention and Resolution, Deputy Director of the Research Center for Monetary Policy and Financial Stability, and Deputy Director of the Industrial Finance Research Center.

His primary research field is information economics, with a focus on theoretical research and its applications in financial intermediation and banking regulation, corporate finance, and macroeconomics. His research outputs have been published in top international economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Economic Theory, and Games and Economic Behavior. He has served as the Principal Investigator (PI) for multiple projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), including the Excellent Young Scientists Fund and the Program for Innovative Research Groups.

His research has earned numerous prestigious academic and industry honors, such as the 8th Zhang Peigang Young Scholar Award in Development Economics, the 9th Outstanding Scientific Research Award for Institutions of Higher Education (Humanities and Social Sciences), Best Paper Award at the Annual Conference on China Science and Technology Finance, Outstanding Achievement Award and Innovative Achievement Award from the Chinese Association for Information Economics, Annual Best Paper of the PwC 3535 Forum, and he has been selected for the Wu Jiabei Research Grant Program of the Chinese Association for Information Economics.

Main Content:

The Coordination Problem stands as a core topic in economics and game theory. When individuals’ payoffs depend on taking actions consistent with those of others, the absence of effective coordination mechanisms may trap them in inefficient equilibria, a scenario known as "coordination failure". This phenomenon prevails widely in real-world economic activities, spanning infrastructure construction, artificial intelligence research and development, platform economies, and the operation of financial markets, all of which entail coordination frictions and resultant efficiency losses. Centered on solutions to coordination failure, this lecture elaborates on two primary intervention approaches: first, information intervention, which shapes participants’ beliefs via information design; second, payoff intervention, which alters behavioral incentives by restructuring participants’ payoff matrices. Based on a review of existing published literature, the lecture also covers cutting-edge advances on coordination problems, including coordination dynamics in multi-period settings and the role of government investment subsidies in mitigating coordination failure, offering novel theoretical insights and experimental evidence for understanding coordination issues.

Time: June 18, 2026 (Thu), 10:30

Location: Coffee Beanery

Organizer: Advanced Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (AI-HSS)

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