This spring, Pierre van Mouche returned to Budapest, to CIAS, for the fifth time. This time, the lecturer and researcher of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and his Hungarian co-authors worked on a game theory publication, in which they examined situations where participants do not enter into binding agreements.
It was in the 2021/2022 academic year when Pierre van Mouche, who has a background in physics and mathematics and researches mathematical economics and game theory, first spent three months at Corvinus under a guest researcher scholarship from CIAS. He found so good Hungarian co-authors – including Ferenc Szidarovszky – that he regularly returns for one-month periods to CIAS, where he usually works on joint publications with Hungarian colleagues.
‘It’s a real gift for me to be able to spend a few weeks in Budapest from time to time doing research. When I am here, I usually do not do anything else, I just work day and night,’ says Pierre, who has had publications in several Q1 and Q2 international peer-reviewed journals in recent years.
He feels that he always finds his place within CIAS easily, but he has language difficulties when he goes around in Budapest.
‘This city was not love at first sight for me. It took me a while to get used to the atmosphere, but I think I’m starting to like Budapest now that I’m here for the fifth time,’ adds the researcher, who tries to relax from his long working days with long walks and sightseeing.
Pierre’s work is his hobby, too, and he says he can get so immersed in solving a particular mathematical or game theory problem that he doesn’t even notice that the evening catches him in the office: ‘Many researchers working on game theories study cooperative game-theory situations, but I’m more interested in non-cooperative game-theory problems where there are no binding agreeemnts among the participants’.
When he does want to take a break from work, he likes to taste good wine: ‘I’m a wine lover,’ he adds with a smile. Among the Hungarian wines, it is the Királyleányka tasted in Eger, as well as the Tokaj wines he has enjoyed most so far.