I am a Professor of Economics at Washington State University. My research focuses on applying Game Theory and Industrial Organization models to polluting industries and other regulated markets. I analyze how firms strategically respond to environmental regulation, including their output and pricing decisions, their investments in clean technologies, and merger decisions, both under complete and incomplete information contexts.
I wrote
Game Theory: An Introduction with Step-by-Step Examples
This book is a beautiful, non-mathematical introduction to Game Theory for everyone, even high school students interested in strategy, its basic modeling, and how to solve games.
It has applications to everyday life, including examples from real business and political science, making it accessible to all sorts of readers. Its verbal description of some solution concepts and mathematical results is, however, too lengthy at times, especially for non-English speakers and students with a good math background, potentially leading to unnecessary confusion.
Game theory means rigorous strategic thinking. It's the art of anticipating your opponent's next moves, knowing full well that your rival is trying to do the same thing to you. Though parts of game theory involve simple common sense, much is counterintuitive, and it can only be mastered by developing a new way of seeing the world. Using a diverse array of rich case studies-from pop culture, TV, movies, sports, politics, and history-the authors show how nearly every business and personal interaction has a game-theory component to it. Mastering game theory will make you more successful in business and life,…
This book is a short introduction to undergraduate-level Game Theory, with a special focus on basic games of complete information and contracts.
It avoids jargon, notation, or formal definitions but emphasizes economic intuition and offers many examples in each chapter. Some chapters require a good math background, making the book a good fit for students who already took at least one course in algebra and calculus.
Joel Watson has refined his successful text to make it even more student-friendly. A number of sections have been added, and numerous chapters have been substantially revised. Dozens of new exercises have been added, along with solutions to selected exercises. Chapters are short and focused, with just the right amount of mathematical content and end-of-chapter exercises. New passages walk students through tricky topics.
This is an excellent, non-technical introduction to game theory, covering most topics, including incomplete information games and evolutionary game theory.
Packed with real-life examples, along with humorous and historical notes, the book is appropriate for undergraduate students from different majors, including political science, history, psychology, and biology.
The book focuses on presenting topics at the undergraduate level, avoiding difficult notation and jargon, and minimizing the math, thus not being a good fit for technical courses in game theory at the Master's and Ph.D. levels, but again, it’s one of the best introductions to game theory for non-technical readers currently available.
Written for majors courses in economics, business, political science, and international relations, but accessible to students across the undergraduate spectrum, Joseph Harrington's innovative textbook makes the tools and applications of game theory and strategic reasoning both fascinating and easy to understand. Each chapter focuses a specific strategic situation as a way of introducing core concepts informally at first, then more fully, with a minimum of mathematics. At the heart of the book is a diverse collection of strategic scenarios, not only from business and politics, but from history, fiction, sports, and everyday life as well. With this approach, students don't…
An excellent game theory book for graduate students, especially for Master's students taking second-year elective courses on game theory, and even technical enough for the first-year Ph.D. Microeconomics course (since most schools spend most of the second semester covering game theory, contract theory, and applications.)
Rigorous, with detailed definitions and notation, yet accessible to senior undergraduate students at top schools (with a strong math background) or Master's students.
This comprehensive textbook introduces readers to the principal ideas and applications of game theory, in a style that combines rigor with accessibility. Steven Tadelis begins with a concise description of rational decision making, and goes on to discuss strategic and extensive form games with complete information, Bayesian games, and extensive form games with imperfect information. He covers a host of topics, including multistage and repeated games, bargaining theory, auctions, rent-seeking games, mechanism design, signaling games, reputation building, and information transmission games. Unlike other books on game theory, this one begins with the idea of rationality and explores its implications for…
This book is an extremely rigorous and formal presentation of Game Theory concepts to Ph.D. students.
The chapters about complete information games and repeated games are particularly superb relative to other advanced books in this field. It also offers chapters on cooperative games, which is quite uncommon in other books (both at the undergraduate and graduate levels.)
The coverage of signaling games, Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium, and equilibrium refinements is relatively brief compared to most other topics in the book, but the book is still great.
Now in its second edition, this popular textbook on game theory is unrivalled in the breadth of its coverage, the thoroughness of technical explanations and the number of worked examples included. Covering non-cooperative and cooperative games, this introduction to game theory includes advanced chapters on auctions, games with incomplete information, games with vector payoffs, stable matchings and the bargaining set. This edition contains new material on stochastic games, rationalizability, and the continuity of the set of equilibrium points with respect to the data of the game. The material is presented clearly and every concept is illustrated with concrete examples from…
Game Theory presents the information as plainly and clearly as possible. Every chapter begins with the main definitions and concepts before diving into the applications to different settings across economics, business, and other social sciences. Chapters walk readers through algebraic steps and simplifications. This makes the text accessible for undergraduate and Masters-level students in economics and finance.
Paired with the exercises published on the accompanying website, students will improve both their theoretical and practical understandings of Game Theory.
I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward.
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…
Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation
Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.
First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…
