Strategic Interaction
Strategic Interaction

Author: Erving Goffman

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 1970

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 0812210115

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The two essays in this classic work by sociologist Erving Goffman deal with the calculative, gamelike aspects of human interaction. Goffman examines the strategy of words and deeds; he uses the term "strategic interaction" to describe gamelike events in which an individual's situation is fully dependent on the move of one's opponent and in which both players know this and have the wit to use this awareness for advantage. Goffman aims to show that strategic interaction can be isolated analytically from the general study of communication and face-to-face interaction. The first essay addresses expression games, in which a participant spars to discover the value of information given openly or unwittingly by another. The author uses vivid examples from espionage literature and high-level political intrigue to show how people mislead one another in the information game. Both observer and observed create evidence that is false and uncover evidence that is real. In "Strategic Interaction," the book's second essay, action is the central concern, and expression games are secondary. Goffman makes clear that often, when it seems that an opponent sets off a course of action through verbal communication, he really has a finger on your trigger, your chips on the table, or your check in his bank. Communication may reinforce conduct, but in the end, action speaks louder. Those who gamble with their wits, and those who study those who do, will find this analysis important and stimulating.

Behavioral Game Theory
Behavioral Game Theory

Author: Colin F. Camerer

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2011-09-05

Total Pages: 569

ISBN-13: 1400840880

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Game theory, the formalized study of strategy, began in the 1940s by asking how emotionless geniuses should play games, but ignored until recently how average people with emotions and limited foresight actually play games. This book marks the first substantial and authoritative effort to close this gap. Colin Camerer, one of the field's leading figures, uses psychological principles and hundreds of experiments to develop mathematical theories of reciprocity, limited strategizing, and learning, which help predict what real people and companies do in strategic situations. Unifying a wealth of information from ongoing studies in strategic behavior, he takes the experimental science of behavioral economics a major step forward. He does so in lucid, friendly prose. Behavioral game theory has three ingredients that come clearly into focus in this book: mathematical theories of how moral obligation and vengeance affect the way people bargain and trust each other; a theory of how limits in the brain constrain the number of steps of "I think he thinks . . ." reasoning people naturally do; and a theory of how people learn from experience to make better strategic decisions. Strategic interactions that can be explained by behavioral game theory include bargaining, games of bluffing as in sports and poker, strikes, how conventions help coordinate a joint activity, price competition and patent races, and building up reputations for trustworthiness or ruthlessness in business or life. While there are many books on standard game theory that address the way ideally rational actors operate, Behavioral Game Theory stands alone in blending experimental evidence and psychology in a mathematical theory of normal strategic behavior. It is must reading for anyone who seeks a more complete understanding of strategic thinking, from professional economists to scholars and students of economics, management studies, psychology, political science, anthropology, and biology.

Geography, Location, and Strategy
Geography, Location, and Strategy

Author: Juan Alcacer

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2017-04-27

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 1787146340

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This volume draws together researchers working in a variety of disciplines in order to explore the many ways that locations matter for firms. The authors draw on newly available data, recently developed theory, and diverse methodology to understand the relationships between firm boundaries, firm activities, and geographic borders.

Complexity and Geographical Economics
Complexity and Geographical Economics

Author: Pasquale Commendatore

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-02-17

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 3319128051

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The uneven geographical distribution of economic activities is a huge challenge worldwide and also for the European Union. In Krugman’s New Economic Geography economic systems have a simple spatial structure. This book shows that more sophisticated models should visualise the EU as an evolving trade network with a specific topology and different aggregation levels. At the highest level, economic geography models give a bird eye’s view of spatial dynamics. At a medium level, institutions shape the economy and the structure of (financial and labour) markets. At the lowest level, individual decisions interact with the economic, social and institutional environment; the focus is on firms’ decision on location and innovation. Such multilevel models exhibit complex dynamic patterns – path dependence, cumulative causation, hysteresis – on a network structure; and specific analytic tools are necessary for studying strategic interaction, heterogeneity and nonlinearities.

Modeling Strategic Behavior: A Graduate Introduction To Game Theory And Mechanism Design
Modeling Strategic Behavior: A Graduate Introduction To Game Theory And Mechanism Design

Author: George J Mailath

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2018-12-18

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9813239956

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It is impossible to understand modern economics without knowledge of the basic tools of gametheory and mechanism design. This book provides a graduate-level introduction to the economic modeling of strategic behavior. The goal is to teach Economics doctoral students the tools of game theory and mechanism design that all economists should know.

The Economy as a Complex Spatial System
The Economy as a Complex Spatial System

Author: Pasquale Commendatore

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-09-18

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 3319656279

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This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license. This collected volume represents the final outcome of the COST Action IS1104 “The EU in the new complex geography of economic systems: models, tools and policy evaluation”. Visualizing the EU as a complex and multi-layered network, the book is organized in three parts, each of them dealing with a different level of analysis: At the macro-level, Part I considers the interactions within large economic systems (regions or countries) involving trade, workers migration, and other factor movements. At the meso-level, Part II discusses interactions within specific but wide-ranging markets, with a focus on financial markets and banking systems. Lastly, at the micro-level, Part III explores the decision-making of single firms, especially in the context of location decisions.

Strategic Choice and International Relations
Strategic Choice and International Relations

Author: David A. Lake

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1999-08-08

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780691026978

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This text brings together a selection of accepted and contested knowledge in the field of international relations, in an attempt to offer a unifying perspective. Together these elements enable the pragmatic application of theories to different cases.

Is Rational Choice Theory All of Social Science?
Is Rational Choice Theory All of Social Science?

Author: Mark I. Lichbach

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2009-12-11

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 047202485X

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Advocates of rational choice theory in political science have been perceived by their critics as attempting to establish an intellectual hegemony in contemporary social science, to the detriment of alternative methods of research. The debate has gained a nonacademic audience, hitting the pages of the New York Times and the New Republic. In the academy, the antagonists have expressed their views in books, journal articles, and at professional conferences. Mark I. Lichbach addresses the question of the place of rational choice theory in the social sciences in general and in political science in particular. He presents a typology of the antagonists as either rationalist, culturalist, or structuralist and offers an insightful examination of the debate. He reveals that the rationalist bid for hegemony and synthesis is rooted in the weaknesses, not the strengths, of rationalist thought. He concludes that the various theoretical camps are unlikely to accept the claimed superiority of the rationalist approach but that this opposition is of value in itself to the social sciences, which requires multiple perspectives to remain healthy. With its penetrating examination of the assumptions and basic arguments of each of the sides to this debate, this book cuts through the partisan rhetoric and provides an essential roadmap for the future of the discipline. Mark I. Lichbach is Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland.

Strategic Decisions in Directed Networks
Strategic Decisions in Directed Networks

Author: Amnon Rapoport

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2022-03-09

Total Pages: 597

ISBN-13: 152757914X

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This book collects and integrates the results of an extensive research program conducted by the authors over the past two decades. It spans the disciplines of transportation science, operations management, and behavioral economics, and consists of 16 chapters previously published in peer-reviewed academic journals and grouped under three topical sections: queueing, route choice, and departure time. The book focuses on strategic interactions in directed networks and laboratory experiments carefully designed to test the descriptive validity of the underlying theoretical models. The research question that unifies the chapters is: do the conclusions of theoretical literature account for the decisions of network users in controlled laboratory experiments? With several major qualifications, this book answers this question affirmatively.

Strategic Choice and International Relations
Strategic Choice and International Relations

Author: David A. Lake

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0691213097

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The strategic-choice approach has a long pedigree in international relations. In an area often rent by competing methodologies, editors David A. Lake and Robert Powell take the best of accepted and contested knowledge among many theories. With the contributors to this volume, they offer a unifying perspective, which begins with a simple insight: students of international relations want to explain the choices actors make--whether these actors be states, parties, ethnic groups, companies, leaders, or individuals. This synthesis offers three new benefits: first, the strategic interaction of actors is the unit of analysis, rather than particular states or policies; second, these interactions are now usefully organized into analytic schemes, on which conceptual experiments may be based; and third, a set of methodological "bets" is then made about the most productive ways to analyze the interactions. Together, these elements allow the pragmatic application of theories that may apply to a myriad of particular cases, such as individuals protesting environmental degradation, governments seeking to control nuclear weapons, or the United Nations attempting to mobilize member states for international peacekeeping. Besides the editors, the six contributors to this book, all distinguished scholars of international relations, are Jeffry A. Frieden, James D. Morrow, Ronald Rogowski, Peter Gourevitch, Miles Kahler, and Arthur A. Stein. Their work is an invaluable introduction for scholars and students of international relations, economists, and government decision-makers.