I grew up listening and participating in discussions about politics. These discussions often ended up on Economics – after all, “it’s the economy, stupid!”. Game theory, by being very broad and focused on strategic interactions, served as a very rewarding unifying apparatus for my understanding of Economics. It is also very beautiful and elegant, combining the austere beauty of pure mathematics with insights from elegant literature – I was pleased to cite Graham Green’s Our Man in Havana in a recent paper. It has accompanied me in a 20-year career since my PhD in Economics at the University of Minnesota to my current professorship in Economics at the University of Surrey.
This is a great book that contains the main papers that shaped game theory.
It starts with John Nash’s 1950 paper which made game theory applicable to an essentially unlimited set of situations: all that involve several people or institutions taking decisions that matter for all those involved.
The book also includes work that enriches the framework of game theory by adding incomplete information, dynamic and stochastic elements, and cooperative considerations.
Many developments in game theory were motivated by concrete applications in Economics and other social sciences and the book shows this too, namely by considering bargaining, competitive economies, and market games.
This book really portrays the evolution of game theory from its beginnings to its heyday.
This text assembles in one sourcebook the basic contributions to the field of game theory that followed on from the publication of "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944. In the "heroic era" of research that began in the late-1940s, the foundations of the current theory were laid; is is these fundamental contributions that are collected in this volume. In the last 15 years, game theory has become the dominant model in economic theory and has made significant contributions to political science, biology and international security studies. The central role of game…
When the goal is to have an appealing introduction to game theory, with plenty of economic applications, there can hardly be any book better than this one.
It covers the core elements of game theory in a simple, yet careful, way, always illustrating them with expertly chosen economic problems. A must for anyone wanting to enter the world of game theory.
This book's introduces one of the most powerful tools of modern economics to a wide audience - not only those who will specialize as pure game theorists but also those who will construct (or even just consume) game-theoretic models in applied fields of economics.
This book is a great advanced textbook on game theory by two leading researchers on the field.
It describes the core elements of game theory in a formal and clear way, it has everything you want to know about it. It is the reference for those who want to learn game theory at an advanced level.
This advanced text introduces the principles of noncooperative game theory in a direct and uncomplicated style that will acquaint students with the broad spectrum of the field while highlighting and explaining what they need to know at any given point.
This advanced text introduces the principles of noncooperative game theory—including strategic form games, Nash equilibria, subgame perfection, repeated games, and games of incomplete information—in a direct and uncomplicated style that will acquaint students with the broad spectrum of the field while highlighting and explaining what they need to know at any given point. The analytic material is accompanied by many…
An excellent textbook on game theory which is unashamedly advanced: no shortcut is taken, no distractions, no simplifications, rather it goes straight to the point and all the details are there.
It is a great book for researchers to learn the important topics in game theory and its fine details.
I have been pleased with the favourable reception of the first edition of this book and I am grateful to have the opportunity to prepare this second edition. In this revised and enlarged edition I corrected some misprints and errors that occurred in the first edition (fortunately I didn't find too many) and I added a large number of notes that give the reader an impression of what kind of results have been obtained since the first edition was printed and that give an indication of the direction the subject is taking. Many of the notes discuss (or refer to…
Game theory has specialized in several topics; one of my favorites and one of the most important ones is repeated games since they describe and analyze the sort of ongoing relationships that most of us experience.
This book has it all: great examples and motivation, detailed and formal presentation of a very broad set of results.
Personalized and continuing relationships play a central role in any society. Economists have built upon the theories of repeated games and reputations to make important advances in understanding such relationships. Repeated Games and Reputations begins with a careful development of the fundamental concepts in these theories, including the notions of a repeated game, strategy, and equilibrium. Mailath and Samuelson then present the classic folk theorem and reputation results for games of perfect and imperfect public monitoring, with the benefit of the modern analytical tools of decomposability and self-generation. They also present more recent developments, including results beyond folk theorems and…
The question of existence of Nash equilibrium has a beautiful history which has been enriched recently through several developments. The purpose of this book is to present such developments and clarify the relationship between several of them.
This book is largely based on my own work as an author, referee, and editor. It, therefore, reflects my taste and my understanding of the problem of existence of equilibrium. Nevertheless, I hope it can be a useful tool for those who wish to learn about this topic, to apply the results present here, or to extend them in new directions.
