Economic Lessons from HBO's Succession
The series is over, what can we learn from it?
Succession is now over as the series finale aired on Sunday, May 28th. I thought the series offered incredible drama and many economics lessons. If you’re missing the series, hopefully you will enjoy these videos. Each video has clips from the series and I discuss the economic lessons we can learn.
Here are the ten videos I created highlighting economic lessons:
#1 Learn about income elasticities from Tom and Cousin Greg
#2 Spite has value and can influence decisions and it should be considered in Game Theory
#3 When is winning an auction a curse? Learn about The Winner’s Curse here:
#4 Backward Induction in Game Theory is a powerful tool in sequential games:
#5 Connor defends Ebenezer Scrooge. Learn why Scrooge gets a bad rap:
#6 Logan, Shiv, Connor, and Roman inherited their wealth. Is that how most millionaires and billionaires became rich?
#7 Roman and Kendall are bargaining and their change in alternatives to the negotiated agreements change the outcomes
#8 Kendall is co-CEO and yet isn’t working to maximize shareholder value. This is a good example of the principal-agent problem, where the person being hired doesn’t have the proper incentives.
#9 Kendall and Logan, at different times in the series, are Rent Seeking - which is a government failure studied in Public Choice Theory. (Where economic analysis studies political science problems.)
#10 A big payout to an executive leaving (or being fired from) a firm is called a Golden Parachute. See three cases where they’re brought up in Succession and learn the economics about them in this video:
Finally, you can check out an article I wrote in February for the Foundation for Economic Education titled Two Game Theory Lessons from HBO's Hit Show Succession. Short excerpt:
First, Succession shows us the prisoner’s dilemma, and shows it is alive and well. Three Roy children—Kendall, Roman, and Shiv—are considered at one time or another to succeed their father, Logan, as CEO. When in conversations with their father, all of them said quite negative things about the competency of their siblings to handle the role of CEO.