This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences.
This work explains that equilibrium is the long-run outcome of a process in which non-fully rational players search for optimality over time. The models they e×plore provide a foundation for equilibrium theory and suggest ways for economists to evaluate and modify traditional equilibrium concepts.
This book considers three relationships: law and economics; economics and game theory; and game theory and law. Economists teach lawyers that economic principles cut across and integrate seemingly different legal subjects such as contracts, torts, and property. Correspondingly, lawyers teach economists that legal rationality is a separate and distinct decision-making process that can be formalized by behavioral rules that are parallel to and comparable with the behavioral rules of economic rationality, that efficiency often must be constrained by legal goals such as equal protection of the laws, due process, and horizontal and distributional equity, and that the general case methodology of economics vs. the hard case methodology of law for determining the truth or falsity of economic theories and theorems sometimes conflict. Economics and Game Theory: Law and economics books focus on economic analysis of judges’ decisions in common law cases and have been mostly limited to contracts, torts, property, criminal law, and suit and settlement. There is usually no discussion of the many areas of law that require cooperative action such as is needed to provide economic infrastructure, control public “bad” type externalities, and make legislation. Game theory provides the bridge between competitive markets and the missing discussion of cooperative action in law and economics. How? Competitive markets are examples (subset) of the Prisoners’ Dilemma, which explains the conflict between individual self-interested behavior and cooperation both in economic markets and in legislative bodies and demonstrates the need for social infrastructure and regulation of pollution and global warming. Game Theory and Law: Lawsuits usually involve litigation between two parties, not the myriad participants in markets, so the assumption of self-interest constrained by markets does not carry over to legal disputes involving one-on-one bargaining in which the law gives one party superior bargaining power. Game theory models predict the effect of different legal institutions, rights, and rules on the outcome of such bargaining. Game theory also has a natural four-model framework which is used in this book to analyze the law and economics of civil obligation, which consists of torts (negligence), contracts, and unjust enrichment.
Mathematical economics and game theory approached with the fundamental mathematical toolbox of nonlinear functional analysis are the central themes of this text. Both optimization and equilibrium theories are covered in full detail. The book's central application is the fundamental economic problem of allocating scarce resources among competing agents, which leads to considerations of the interrelated applications in game theory and the theory of optimization. Mathematicians, mathematical economists, and operations research specialists will find that it provides a solid foundation in nonlinear functional analysis. This text begins by developing linear and convex analysis in the context of optimization theory. The treatment includes results on the existence and stability of solutions to optimization problems as well as an introduction to duality theory. The second part explores a number of topics in game theory and mathematical economics, including two-person games, which provide the framework to study theorems of nonlinear analysis. The text concludes with an introduction to non-linear analysis and optimal control theory, including an array of fixed point and subjectivity theorems that offer powerful tools in proving existence theorems.
This textbook offers a systematic, self-contained account of the main contributions of modern game theory and its applications to economics. Starting with a detailed description of how to model strategic situations, the discussion proceeds by studying basic solution concepts, their main refinements, games played under incomplete information, and repeated games. For each of these theoretical developments, there is a companion set of applications that cover the most representative instances of game-theoretic analysis in economics, e.g. oligopolistic competition, public goods, coordination failures, bargaining, insurance markets, implementation theory, signaling and auctions. The theory and applications covered in the first part of the book fall under the so-called 'classical' approach to game theory, which is founded on the paradigm of players' unlimited rationality. The second part shifts towards topics that no longer abide by that paradigm. This leads to the study of topics such as the interplay between evolution and rationality.
Game theory is the study of strategic behavior in situations in which the decision makers are aware of the interdependence of their actions. This innovative textbook introduces students to the most basic principles of game theory - move and countermove - with an emphasis on real-world business and economic applications. Students with a background in principles of economics and business mathematics can readily understand most of the material.Demonstration problems in each chapter are designed to enhance the student's understanding of the concepts presented in the text. Many chapters include non-technical applications designed to further the student's intuitive understanding of strategic behavior. Case studies help underscore the usefulness of game theory for analyzing real-world situations. Each chapter concludes with a review and questions and exercises. An online Instructor's Manual with test bank is available to professors who adopt the text.
Drawing on examples from current economic literature and politics, this is the first book on game theory at an introductory, but not elementary, level. The author covers topics of great actual or potential use in economics, such as noncooperative games, infinitely repeated games, finitely repeated games, two-person cooperative games, and cooperative games with and without side payments. Thoroughly revised, the new second edition of this authoritative book includes greatly expanded coverage of equilibrium refinements, and the "folk theorem" for repeated games as well as a new chapter on finite noncooperative games.
